


Wrong Turn

by anticyclone, D20Owlbear



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Agnes Nutter's Prophecies, Alternate Selves, Alternate Universe, Armageddon, Bickering, Discorporation (Good Omens), Enemies to Lovers, Happy Ending, Humor, Knives, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Canonical Character(s), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), That thing where you tilt someone's chin up with a knife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25225810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone, https://archiveofourown.org/users/D20Owlbear/pseuds/D20Owlbear
Summary: Lots and lots of somethings are wrong. First, Crowley's nearly hit by a car. Then he almost brains himself tripping over new and excessive piles of books at the bookshop. To add insult to near-injury, Aziraphale starts throwing knives at him. Safe to say his day could be going better.The thing that's the most wrong of all is the universe, of course. In this one there was never an Arrangement. Aziraphale and Anthony (they can't both be 'Crowley') aren't friends and they certainly never agreed to prep for Armageddon. Unfortunately, the end of the world is two days away.So that's something Crowley really has to fix before they can figure out how to get him home.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 219
Kudos: 282
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works), Good Omens Mini Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Do It With Style Mini Bang 2020. Written by [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/), art by [D20Owlbear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/D20Owlbear).
> 
> Thanks to [thedeadparrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeadparrot) and [silverandblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverandblue) for betaing. All mistakes are anticyclone's own.
> 
> All story-content footnotes formatted with thedeadparrot's [footnote formatter](https://codepen.io/thedeadparrot/full/mdyXyzw).

"You aren't going to believe what just happened to me," Crowley said, barreling into the bookshop. He only stopped to wave the doors shut. And to sneeze.

And sneeze again. Had Aziraphale spent the day dusting? There was way more dust than usual. For some reason all the lights were out, too. It was the work of a casual miracle to call them all to life - Crowley had never seen Aziraphale use a lightswitch and wouldn't know where to find them even if there weren't books everywhere.[1] The lights revealed more haphazard stacks of books than he remembered from yesterday. A whole shelf near the door had all the books turned spine-in. The musty smell had been dialed up too.

Frowning, Crowley headed toward the back. The new piles of books meant he had to take the long way around the staircase to get there.

"Driver nearly ran me over," he continued, twisting to sidle past a square table almost completely blocking an aisle. "Had a miracle buffer up and he tore right through. Don't worry though, your pastries are - Damn!"

There was a typewriter in the middle of the floor. It must have been made of solid iron, because tripping over it nearly broke his foot. He'd even dropped the cardboard box of specially-ordered pastries to the floor. He picked it up, looked around to confirm Aziraphale wasn't watching, and miracled the smeared icing perfect again.

"Aziraphale, did somebody haggle for a book today? What's with the obstacle course?" He hopped up and down, shaking the pain out of his foot.

A shadow fell across the floor.

Crowley hopped once more. That turned out to be enough to shake the last of the pain from his foot, and also just enough so that the slim, pearl-handled throwing knife landed in a cream puff instead of Crowley's gut.

He dropped the box and didn't move to pick it up. "Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale stood in the narrow gap between the wall and a bookshelf. His mouth had twisted in an unhappy line and his eyes were flat. The knife still in his hand was also pearl-handled, but big enough to place it firmly in dagger territory.

"I thought I made it quite clear," Aziraphale said, crisply, "that your kind weren't welcome in the bookshop."

Something … was … wrong.

Crowley lifted both his hands. He stepped back, nearly tripped over the typewriter again, and caught himself on a bookshelf. "Let's take it easy. I think - I think we've both missed something, yeah?"

Aziraphale drew back, affronted. The dagger was still held up high between them, though, and he gripped it like he knew how to use it even better than he knew how to throw small knives. There was - There was something else wrong, too, even more than the offense on Aziraphale's face. Crowley couldn't put his finger on it. The panic sloshing around inside him when he moved made it tough to concentrate.

"Do you take me for a fool?"

"Never," Crowley swore, with such vehemence that it made Aziraphale blink.

He regretted leaving his sunglasses on. Maybe if Aziraphale could see his eyes, he would've hesitated for more than a blink. Instead, the slight tilt of his head was the only warning Crowley got before Aziraphale abruptly lunged forward with that dagger.

Everything - Every single thing - here was wrong. The traffic wasn't right. The bookshop wasn't right. Aziraphale was definitely, absolutely, not right.

Crowley's miracles were still working, though.

"You devil," Aziraphale snapped, uncreatively, when all the lights in the shop went out in the same instant.

Crowley didn't reply. Crowley was busy skittering away from the back of the shop, around the spiral staircase, and through some cobwebs up into a particularly black corner of protective shadow. He could hear Aziraphale snapping his fingers. The lights did not come back on. Crowley had sunk enough power into that miracle to give him time to flatten himself up against the ceiling.

The next thing he heard was absolutely-not-Aziraphale fumbling around in the dark. A quick rush of air heralded the flare of a candle in his hand. He raised it and peered out into the shadows of the shop.

The yellow light made his hair look blond instead of white. At least until the candle flickered, and shadow crawled briefly over definitely-not-Aziraphale's face.

Lots and lots of somethings were wrong.

Most immediately, an angel prowled the shop with a wicked (blessed?) dagger and said things like, "I didn't expect to see you again after our last discussion," which as far as Crowley remembered had been about what pastries he, Crowley, was supposed to pick up at the restaurant. Incredibly-not-Aziraphale went on, "I don't know how I could have communicated more stringently that if you trespassed in my territory again, it would be a painful mistake."

Crowley concentrated on not breathing. If he breathed, he made noise. If he breathed, it made the panic slosh around in his gut and he hadn't figured out what to do with that yet.

The other thing that was immediately wrong were the cobwebs on the ceiling. They stuck to his hand and there was one close enough to his face that Crowley had to actively concentrate on not sneezing. That should have been a clue. His Aziraphale, the _right_ Aziraphale, used poor cataloging and abrasive customer service like a pearl-handled dagger. The shop was a maze all on its own. He didn't have to resort to piles of books and ephemera on the floor. There certainly weren't any cobwebs - at least not up on the ceiling where no customer could even see.

The wrong Aziraphale passed under him and continued walking through the aisles.

"If you aren't going to come out and face me, you could at least tell me what in Heaven's name you're doing here."

"You invited me, you blasted idiot," Crowley snapped, doing something funny in his throat to project his voice.

It was the suit. That's what Crowley should've noticed earlier. The suit, it looked - It looked just like Aziraphale's, but new. That should've tipped him off to this being the wrong Aziraphale, like all the mess and dust should've tipped him off to this being the wrong shop. And yes, he knew that knowing this was the wrong shop meant his comeback didn't work, but he was preoccupied with huddling in a dark corner and not getting repeatedly stabbed.

A demon could only think of so many things at once.

Several aisles over, the wrong Aziraphale stopped. He turned in the opposite direction from Crowley - great, that meant throwing his voice worked - and tilted his head. Candlelight caught the extremely sharp edge of the dagger.

"Please," he said, severe. But there was also a tiny hint of something else. Doubt? That's what actual Aziraphale's voice sounded like when he suspected he'd missed something. "The only way I'd ever invite you anywhere would be - Why, it'd be a sign of the end times."

"Funny thing," Crowley muttered. "That was six months ago now."

The wrong Aziraphale kept staring into the opposite part of the shop. He lowered his dagger but did not put it away. "Perhaps you should tell me a little more, Crawly."

"It's _Crowley."_

Aziraphale turned, and now his face was wrinkled in confusion. He almost looked like the real Aziraphale. "Since when?"

"Are you going to stab me if I answer?"

That eye roll was pure Aziraphale, anyway. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Oh, yeah, it's ridiculous to assume somebody who tried to stab me and is still holding at least one knife is going to stab me. My mistake."

"I'm not stupid enough to put the dagger away." There was no doubt in his tone now.

Crowley had never actually seen Aziraphale wield the flaming sword. Just sorta. Spied him standing there with it. There hadn't been anything to wield it against in the Garden of Eden, had there?[2] But there was purpose to this Aziraphale's movements when he walked forward. He held the dagger as if it were an extension of his arm. His walk was so smooth, so assured, so measured that the candle in his other hand barely flickered.

He passed underneath Crowley and Crowley resisted the urge to close his eyes. Not like that was the key to turning invisible anyway.

Wrong Aziraphale paused at the bottom of the spiral staircase. "There's only so long you can dodge me through the stacks," he said. "I know you aren't on the second level. You might as well come out, because otherwise you're going to end up setting off one of my traps. Although that would make things easier on my end."

Traps? Of course there were traps. Besides the book maze and the iron typewriter.

Now, if the real Aziraphale had set up traps for Crowley… Not that he could imagine having done anything to warrant that, but if he didn't end up discorporated it'd be because Aziraphale didn't want him discorporated. This Aziraphale, though? This Aziraphale would probably poison the pastries, once he dug the throwing knife out of the box. Which brought Crowley back to the question of: Wrong Aziraphale, wrong bookshop, wrong… London? Did Crowley walk into the wrong building or was he in the wrong city? Was that why he'd nearly gotten hit by the super speeding black car, outside?

Ugh. Questions that couldn't be answered from the ceiling.

But he thought about it too long and Aziraphale was too impatient to keep waiting for a response.

"Listen, Crawly. If you want to speak with me about Armageddon, you had better get on with it. Time is not a resource we have in abundance."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Crowley asked, although he had a sinking feeling he already knew.

"From what I've heard, Armageddon starts the day after tomorrow."

Just his luck.

He dropped to the floor, making as much noise as possible without knocking anything over. At the bottom of the staircase Wrong Aziraphale whipped around. The angel's eyes widened when he realized his back had been to Crowley the entire time, but Crowley stayed with one knee on the floor and held his hands up in obvious and theatrical peace.

"You said we could talk," he said. And then scowled when Aziraphale's eyes darted to his dagger. "You don't see me pulling out a - a gun, or something. For Hell's sake, I walked in with a box of cream puffs!"

Aziraphale hesitated. There were worry lines at the corners of his eyes now. "I did notice that and thought it was strange," he admitted. "After you ran away."

"After you started chasing me for no reason."

"No reason?" Aziraphale's mouth popped open - again, for a second he looked like the real deal - and he actually fumbled with the dagger when he tried pointing it menacingly at Crowley. 

Crowley snorted.

That proved to be a mistake.

In the next second the sharp point of the dagger was pressed to the soft spot under his chin. Absolutely, definitely, incredibly Wrong Aziraphale used the flat of the blade to tilt his chin up. 

The candle floated in the air behind them. Like Aziraphale had dropped it and forgotten to let gravity have it. Fortunate, since Crowley wasn't up to the bookshop burning down again, even if it was the wrong bookshop and there were traps and iron typewriters scattered everywhere. The candlelight shining on Aziraphale from behind made his hair look bright and coated his face in shadow. The outrage gave way to a hard mask.

"The last time you showed your face at this shop, you spoiled a meeting with two Archangels," Aziraphale said, like Crowley was supposed to remember it all in Technicolor detail. "Gabriel still asks me if I have you 'under control yet' every time I have go to upstairs."

Crowley exhaled. To keep from cutting himself on the dagger, he had to pick up his chin a little. "That's just it. I don't think you've seen _me_ at all. I certainly never let that prick Gabriel get a look at me."

Aziraphale suddenly plucked the sunglasses from Crowley's face. 

Crowley froze. If the dagger had moved forward into his throat, he wouldn't have noticed. Aziraphale lifted the sunglasses with the hand that had held the candle and shook them. The candlelight glinted off the lenses. Aziraphale said, "You aren't seriously trying to tell me you aren't a demon."

A cold, sour curl of bitterness drifted through Crowley's chest to burrow in his gut. Clenching his jaw, he forced out, "I don't think I'm your demon."

"I don't have a demon!" Aziraphale scowled, drew in a long, slow breath. He pressed the dagger forward the barest millimeter. Crowley was still looking at the sunglasses in his hand. "Prove it, then."

"Prove a negative? How?"

"I don't know, I'm not the one claiming to be someone else."

"Can you at least get that knife off me?" Crowley batted it away without waiting to see what Wrong Aziraphale might do about it. Fortunately, all it did was surprise the angel into taking a step back. Crowley held out his hand and snapped his fingers just for the noise. "And give me back my glasses!"

Aziraphale stared for a long moment before dropping the sunglasses into Crowley's palm.

Crowley shoved them back onto his face. He ran a hand through his hair and straightened his jacket without standing up. It was a blatant stalling tactic, but if the universe was going to do this to him - whatever the actual Hell this was - he deserved an extra five seconds.

"Would I have brought a box of pastry with me if I thought I was 'trespassing on holy territory'?" He pitched his voice a bit to imitate Aziraphale's accent. (Aziraphale's expression suggested this didn't help his case.) "Would I have casually strolled through the shop griping about almost getting run over if I thought you would have a knife on you? Oh, sorry, more than one knife! Who knows how many you have left in that jacket!"

"I'm not an assassin. Just prepared."

"How would I know you liked cream puffs and Manchester tarts and sticky toffee puddings from the shop down the block, hmm?"

"You could have been watching me."

Crowley snapped his fingers twice more as something else occurred to him. It made Wrong Aziraphale cringe, but whatever, the only miracle he worked was to turn the lights back on. "Creature of habit, yeah, yeah," he said. "But if you're so meticulous you always buy the same pastries, and have kept that coat like new for 180 years, and set up demon-traps in your own shop, how come none of them went off?"

Aziraphale blinked.

"Do you really think your demon - sorry, your 'demonic nemesis,' whatever - could slink all the way to the back of the shop without tripping a single one of your traps?" Crowley asked, tilting his head and letting his voice fall into soft pleading tones.

Believe the obvious, Wrong Aziraphale. C'mon.

Aziraphale looked at his dagger, at Crowley, and back at the knife. He turned it over in his hand before ever so slowly lowering it to his side. "No. I don't."

"So we can agree that I'm. Not. Him. I don't know what's happened or why I'm here, but I can tell you I've already been through this Armageddon rubbish and it's not worth repeating," Crowley said, grimly. He put one hand on the floor and pushed himself to his feet. Aziraphale tensed, so he also spent a moment casually brushing his jacket back to rights. "And if you've only got two days, you're way behind."

"Behind in what? It'll take me all of one trip across town to get myself up to Heaven in time for the trumpets," said Aziraphale, in the tones of someone who has repeatedly done the math and failed to come up with a way to miss the trumpets altogether.

"Let's skip the part where you pretend like you're eager to lead a battalion and have spent any time coming up with an excuse about why you don't have the flaming sword anymore, all right? We both know you don't want Earth to end. There's no good music in Heaven, the only food is tasteless mana, and there's not a single angel there who's going to know the difference between Mary and Percy Shelley."

All the color had gone out of Aziraphale's face. "How did you know that?"

"I may not make an effort to run into Archangels, but I know they don't sit around reading mediocre poetry and foundational genre novels-"

"Not that," Aziraphale said, exasperated. "About-" He faltered, and swallowed. His hand tightened on the dagger. "About the sword? I haven't even told … I haven't told anyone about that."

"You told me. In Eden. In my Eden. And yes, I know you lied to God about it, like She doesn't already know, you sneaky bastard," Crowley said. He really did not mean that last bit to sound affectionate, but he couldn't help it.

Abruptly, the dagger was gone from Aziraphale's hand. Wherever he put it, Crowley didn't know, but his hands were now busy doing the fluttering-fretting thing Crowley knew so well. Aziraphale brushed past Crowley to walk into the back of the shop. "I can't cope with this while I'm sober," he whispered under his breath. Crowley almost laughed.

Almost.

"I get it. It's all right. Nobody but those out of touch fools wants Earth to burn up." Crowley followed, hovering a respectful distance away that also happened to put him out of stabbing range. "I'm not going to tell on you to anyone. Who would I tell? I don't think I'm in the right world at all."

Aziraphale broke open a new wine bottle and poured himself a glass with a trembling hand. Crowley would need to be careful.

"Let me talk. I can tell you all about it, angel," Crowley murmured. The pet name made Aziraphale turn to look at him with wide blue eyes. "Me and you - my you - we helped stop it, all of it. No Armageddon. No battlefields. No seas of blood. Nobody dying."

Aziraphale took a long drink of wine. "I can't do this right now."

"Aziraphale-"

 _"No,"_ Aziraphale said, sharply. He set the glass down hard enough that the wine it in sloshed nearly over the edge. "This is - This is too much to believe all at once. I'm supposed to be getting ready to report to the quartermaster."

"But that's what I'm telling you, you don't have to."

"Come back in the morning, Crawly."

Aziraphale hadn't chased him out of the bookshop in months. Not since… 

But right. Right. Wrong Aziraphale, wrong bookshop, wrong universe. This Crawly hadn't earned the right to nap on the hideous couch in the back, so Crowley didn't know why he expected to be allowed to sit down.

"I keep telling you it's Crowley," he sighed, turning towards the door.

"Crowley." Aziraphale's face crinkled like he'd tasted cream on the edge of souring.

"Should make it less confusing, yeah? If the other… If he's still using that old name?"

Aziraphale pressed his lips together for a moment. "I doubt that will be a problem. But if you insist… Crowley. I'll see you in the morning."

The last thing Crowley heard before the bookshop door swung shut was, "And please knock!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1. There weren't any. Light switches, that was. Aziraphale didn't have electric lights installed in the bookshop so much as he bought some electric lamps and hung them up.↩
> 
> 2. Besides Crowley.↩


	2. Chapter 2

Killing the rest of the night was easy. Crowley found a bar open into the wee hours and sat in a back corner while the staff cleaned up. A few times one of the waitresses stopped to squint in his direction. He thought empty-chair thoughts until someone asked why she was dragging her feet, and she went back to work. He did wait until everybody was gone to put his feet up on the table. That tended to push conscientious humans' bounds of ignorability.

He got two shots into a bottle of whiskey before giving up, slinking back to the bar, and fishing out a bottle of wine that didn't protest too much at being miracled into something decent.

Half a glass in he said to himself, "Crowley," he said, "why don't you just send yourself back to the right universe?"

Yeah, alright.

"Ever had a hangover before you drank anything?" he wheezed from the floor a second later.

The floor under his cheek was sticky where someone missed a spot during clean-up. It hurt to even think about trying to make it not sticky.

No universe-hopping miracles for him.

It took at least ten minutes for the throbbing bone sensation to subside, and another several before Crowley could haul himself back onto the bench in the dark corner. Whatever sent him here had to have been more than the effort of a single demon (or angel). That was either great news or fucking awful news.

If Hastur hadn't surged up from the depths of Hell to ruin his life, it meant he probably didn't need to worry about Gabriel having descended from the heavens to spoil Aziraphale's.

Aziraphale was probably - _had_ to be - safe and sound, in his own shop. Not being flung into different realities and confronted with evil Crowleys who had read all of Hell's manuals and decided to make creative edits instead of chucking them in the bin.

Probably.

Had to be.

Crowley took a long drink. He held the wine in his mouth before swallowing.

"Could use a sign right about now," he told the room. He risked peering over the edge of his sunglasses - yep, no, even the few bar lights he'd left on were too bright - and thunked his head against the wall. "Don't even have to send me back yet. Just… some kind of sign? A nod? Something's going on, and not an unknowable, unfixable nothing?"

But if God or Agnes Nutter was inclined to talk directly to lone demons in this universe, neither showed herself.

When his watch announced sunrise, he rolled off the bench and onto the sidewalk.

The headache and overall hangover feeling had mostly receded, especially since he was still a bit tipsy, but he sort of wished he could slither back to the bookshop as a snake. Being stuck in snake form in the wrong universe was a terrifying prospect, but so was getting the bookshop door slammed in his face. If he showed up as a twelve-meter snake it would be faster to let him inside than to deal with all the gawking humans on the sidewalk.

Hands in his pockets, he kept his head down and forced a bunch of gawking humans to dodge him on the sidewalk. It made him feel a little bit better.

At least until he rounded the corner to the shop and the person on the other half of the sidewalk stuck his leg out to trip Crowley.

Crowley didn't break his face on the pavement. This was because the person who tripped him grabbed him by the shoulders, lifted him up, and slammed him face-first into the nearest brick wall. Crowley was expecting the dagger point against his spine before it actually landed. He would bang his head against the wall if he didn't think it would get him stabbed.

"Who're you?" he asked the bricks. "Haniel? Nanael? Uh - the one with the V?"

A sliver of horrified silence, followed by an uncomfortably familiar voice asking back, "You think I'm a bloody Principality?"

"Not anymore. Is that what I really sound like?"

"What is that supposed to-" The Wrong Crowley hissed out a breath. "You aren't me."

"If I'm lucky," Crowley muttered.

That got him hauled back from the wall. This shortcut to the bookshop was damnedly free of potential witnesses, so Wrong Crowley (who would need a better name) was able to march him down the sidewalk uninterrupted.

"So if you're not a Principality here to help Wrong Aziraphale," he said, mostly to find out what Wrong Crowley's reaction to that would be, "then why do you care what I'm up to?"

Wrong Crowley's reaction to that was to hiss again and push Crowley off the curb so the two of them were standing behind the Bentley. The sun was too bright and the sky too clear to make out exact details in their reflections, but as far as he could see Wrong Crowley was a mirror image of himself. Except for the clothes. There was something about the clothes, but before he could put his finger on it the boot of the Bentley popped open.

"You didn't happen to nearly run me over in the street last night?"

The Bentley was not supposed to _have_ a boot, especially not one this deep. It didn't look like it from the outside. It must have thought it was being helpful.

"If I'd seen your face, I would've sped up," the other Crowley said. "Unfriendly warning? Don't teleport into the middle of the street."

So now he knew when he transitioned from one universe to the next. Not that it helped.

Crowley said, "You still haven't answered my question about Wrong Aziraphale."

"Aziraphale'sss not-" The other Crowley bit his hiss off in the middle and did not finish the thought. "If either of us isn't suppossed to be here, it'ss you. And until I figure out what'ss going on, you're staying put."

"I do know Armageddon's tomorrow. You can't possibly have time to babysit me. Why not let me go?"

"You're right, I don't have time. But I'm not going to babysit you."

And if Crowley wasn't still smarting from that attempt at universe-hopping, he would totally have been able to stop Wrong Crowley from shoving him into the boot and slamming the lid closed.[3]

Crammed in the back of the Bentley, Crowley allowed himself a wallowing moment to think about how worried his Aziraphale must have been when he didn't show up on time.

But the thing about spending centuries pretending to be distracted precisely when Crowley was scheduled to arrive was that sometimes Aziraphale ended up genuinely distracted.

It wasn't as if Aziraphale had any reason to pretend, anymore, that he didn't anticipate Crowley's visits. Habit was simply a hard thing to break. The fact that the sight of Aziraphale tucked into an armchair, spectacles on the end of his nose, too engrossed in a book to take notice of Crowley's approaching footfalls meant that sometimes Crowley was forced to kiss his cheek to gain his attention, well. That was better left unremarked upon.

Tonight Crowley would be bringing him pastries from the corner shop. He was due to arrive in half an hour.

Aziraphale settled down with a well-loved copy of _Carmilla_ he'd gotten secondhand because at the time he'd thought Crowley might enjoy it, and it wasn't as if Crowley would be bartering for books with cash-strapped Irish graduate students.[4]

He finished it in due course and absently began to read the book he'd started to put it down on top of.

It wasn't until he'd put _that_ book down that Aziraphale realized Crowley was past due.

Frowning, he set his spectacles aside and went to the front of the shop. There were plenty of people walking past. None of them with Crowley's distinctive gait.

Perhaps he'd gotten the time wrong.

He sat back down.

Another hour passed, with far fewer pages read. By the end of it the bakeshop had closed and there was no reason for Crowley not to have shown himself. Or to not be answering his phone - either his mobile or the line at the flat. The landline went to voicemail.

The mobile did not ring once. A mechanical voice reported that "The number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable," and Aziraphale's heart sank into his stomach.

By the time morning rolled around and Crowley was at knifepoint, Aziraphale was also beside himself. Just slightly less literally.

The thing was, only Crowley was allowed to bother Aziraphale.

The fact that it wasn't actually Aziraphale was beside the point. Crowley was busy trying not to think about the part where Wrong Crowley almost definitely had worse intentions than _bothering_ Wrong Aziraphale.

Also, if he made it through this, he was going to come up with better nicknames. He really was.

Fumbling around in the dark yielded two things: a tire iron, and a latch. The latch popped the boot open again and let Crowley roll out onto the street. He grabbed the tire iron and started to run down toward the bookshop - but had to circle back after a second to close the boot again. What if it rained? What if a meddling human came by? Or a child?! It wasn't his car, sure, but - Okay, okay, who knew what Wrong Crowley was getting up to, time to leave.

"'Last time you showed your face in this shop,'" he said to himself. "'Interrupted a meeting with a couple of Archangels.' What the Hell is that supposed to mean?"

The universe would have to be very alternate for Crowley to believe any version of himself would get into a scuffle with Gabriel - or oh, for fuck's sake, who was the other one who'd been visiting the shop, that one time? Not Michael, he would remember if it was Michael. Sandalphon, right. 

What kind of demon would willingly get in Sandalphon's face?

This Aziraphale had installed yellowed curtains that had probably been old since he'd gotten them, and when Crowley bolted up the street they were all pulled shut. The sign in the door had been flipped to CLOSED, with a tiny scribble underneath reading *INDEFINITELY, WITH OUR APOLOGIES.

It didn't stop Crowley from opening the door or charging inside with the tire iron.

He skidded to a halt just past the threshold.

Wrong Crowley did in fact have different clothes. He wore a snugly cut black suit jacket over a black shirt and slacks, and, of course, a black tie. There were black studs in his ears and his sunglasses were square (and black). He also wore several black rings that caught the light when he rapped his fingers against his arm, which he was doing because he had both arms crossed tightly against his chest.

Personally, Crowley thought it was a little … much.

It was also all in sharp contrast to the glowing white circle at his feet. Crisscrossed with a pentagram, scattered with sigils in what Crowley recognized as Aziraphale's neat and particular penmanship, the circle radiated a faint holy light that made him want to put sunglasses on over his sunglasses.

"Uh," he said.

Wrong Crowley sneered. "Bugger off."

"I did ask that you knock," Aziraphale sighed.

Crowley turned to see Aziraphale emerging from between two shelves. He had a blue enamelware mug in his hand filled nearly to the brim with cocoa. None of it splashed as he carefully picked his way around the circle to stand at Crowley's left.

"One of your traps?" he asked. He could feel the corner of his mouth wanting to stretch into a smile and only just stopped himself from grinning. It was unsportsmanlike.

"Yes." Aziraphale took a sip of his cocoa and frowned. "Is that… What is that?"

"Tire iron." Crowley rested the tire iron against his shoulder.

"Why on Earth do you have one of those?"

Wrong Crowley cleared his throat. They both looked over at him, and he clenched his jaw. His sunglasses were large enough to completely hide his eyes, but it was obvious he was glowering. 

"Should've known you'd want to get the last word in, but reaching across realities is a low move. What if you'd broken something? Typical angel, no regard for-"

"Your side is about to break everything, so don't speak to me about my regard," Aziraphale said, coolly. He turned to Crowley and said, "As I asked before we were so rudely interrupted, why do you have a tire iron?"

Wrong Crowley snapped his teeth and didn't say anything.

Crowley looked back and forth between them. "Got it from the Bentley - er, his car."

"I know what the Bentley is. Did you break in?" Aziraphale was scrupulously not looking at Wrong Crowley. His voice was casually curious, like he didn't at all care if someone had heartlessly smashed in Wrong Crowley's windows, but his eyes were so bright it suggested he hadn't been this invested in something in ages.

"No, he locked me in the back."

Wrong Crowley said, "You deserved it."

"I did literally nothing to you," Crowley pointed out.

Aziraphale blew on his cocoa. "Why were you even in my neighborhood, Crawly?"

Wrong Crowley kicked at a sigil and flinched when it sparked at him.

"You don't really still go by that, do you?" Crowley felt his face scrunch up. He couldn't bring himself to say it.

The idea that there was a universe where he hadn't given up that name… It made his spine try to curl in.

Aziraphale hummed. "I've never heard anyone call him anything else. And he's never corrected me. As you said last night, Crowley, it should make things easier," he said. He stretched out Crowley's name. And in Crowley's opinion the tone he used to refer to last night was not suited to 'finding a strange demon in the shop, who looked like a familiar demon, and trying to skewer him with the sharp end of a fancy knife.'

Wrong Crowley paced the circle, even though it made sparks light up at his feet.

"When I first set this trap I expected I'd have to discorporate Crawly to get him out of here. There's so little time left though, I might as well not trouble myself." Aziraphale turned like he didn't notice that made Wrong Crowley pace even faster. "You came to continue our discussion from last night, Crowley?"

Okay. That was twice he'd said 'last night' and Crowley's name. Crowley let out a noncommittal grunt and kept watch on Wrong Crowley, who rolled his eyes so theatrically it swept through his entire body.

"Follow me into the back," Aziraphale said. He gestured at the door and Crowley heard it lock. Smiling, and starting to walk away from the circle, he added, "I have scones and raspberries."

"Of course you're worried about breakfast," Wrong Crowley said.

Crowley pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head. It didn't actually help him squint better, but it made it more obvious that he was squinting. Aziraphale had come to a halt between two bookcases.

"Do - Do you even know Armageddon's on?" Wrong Crowley demanded. He flicked his hand against the air above the edge of the circle and instantly hissed, yanking it back when a wall of light flickered briefly into place. Steam rose from a red-singed line along his knuckles. He shook his hand as he spoke. "Do either of you have the slightest idea what's happening tomorrow? All of this is going to be over. Gone. _Destroyed._ "

It was a convincing take. It'd been six months - or eleven years, six months, depending on when you started the count - and Crowley could still feel the sick sour taste on the back of his tongue from when it'd started looking desperate.

It was supposed to be over. They'd already done this.

And never mind getting discorporated in the wrong universe, imagine the whole planet going dark…

"Your piece in it, perhaps," Aziraphale said, carelessly. He did not turn around. If you weren't used to watching him, maybe it wouldn't have been obvious that the line of his shoulders was stiff. "Heaven will win, Crawly. All will be as was meant."

"For the great big nothingness of space, maybe. There isn't going to be anything left! Do you think She's going to remake paradise?"

Now Aziraphale did turn around, his eyes hard. "Once all of your kind are done with-"

"My kind? My kind! Looks like you're busy hauling extras of mine across dimensions and inviting them to breakfast!"

"Also from the future," Crowley added. "Where I would like to go back to."

"I did not haul anyone anywhere, Crowley turned up all on his own," Aziraphale protested.

Crowley held up one finger. Oi. This was not a conversation worth repeating. He didn't like that look on Aziraphale's face any better, either. "Not exactly. That's really it, I don't know what sent me-"

"And you sure are put out," Wrong Crowley said. Crowley had a brief moment of being annoyed that neither of them were listening to anything he was saying, and then Wrong Crowley looked straight at him and said, "I could be from the future if I wanted."

"Sure, sure," Crowley said. He stepped forward - although not enough to brush against the circle, he wasn't as stupid as his counterpart - and idly laid the tire iron down on the table. He didn't need it, and it left his hands free to fix his jacket cuffs and look laid-back. He was himself, right? How hard could it be to get him to listen to himself? He really needed to get somebody to listen to him before - before everything blew up in their faces. Before he had to listen to an Aziraphale sing the glories of Heaven again. "The thing is, and this is what I was trying to talk to Aziraphale about-"

"Don't you mean Wrong Aziraphale?" Wrong Crowley taunted.

Aziraphale blinked. The steeliness disappeared from his eyes. "Do you?"

"Mmmph, you see, so what I'm trying to talk about," Crowley fumbled, because even a Wrong Aziraphale had beseechingly huge eyes when he wanted to, "is that in my reality, there was no Armageddon." He snapped his fingers and a puff of gray smoke went up above his hand. "Nothing. Earth spins merrily on. No war. Well, I mean, there's War, but it's all humans. Heaven and Hell stood down their armies."

"Never happen," the demon in the circle said.

Aziraphale looked into his mug.

"Oh, can't bring yourself to agree with me for one measly second?" Wrong Crowley asked. He spun on his heel and started walking around the interior of the circle, although this time he didn't bump the edge. "A demon mentions that Armageddon's inevitable, and this one's got to argue."

"But that's the thing," Crowley insisted. "It's not inevitable."

"It is written," Aziraphale said, quietly. "Tomorrow morning, we'll both be with our respective armies, and as shortly afterward as Michael can manage it, the war will be over."

Wrong Crowley asked, "Does that mean you're going to let me out of the circle?"

"It doesn't matter if it's written!" Crowley said. Hadn't that been what the kid said? Hadn't it _worked,_ when he'd said it?

"Perhaps I could come back with my regiment and break the circle then," Aziraphale said, lifting his chin.

Wrong Crowley smiled to bare his teeth. "Afraid to face me alone? You know Heaven's going to win, but not so sure when it comes to you and me?"

"This may be your thing," Crowley said, the edges of his patience fraying, "but my Aziraphale and I are living quite happily all on our own and I would like to get back there before this place turns to dust and us with it. Given how much of a disaster you two are, I can't think it's a coincidence I landed right here, right now."

Wrong Crowley looked straight at him. He said, flat, "He'll never listen. You might as well give up."

"Oh, for fuck's sake. It was easier to have this argument with Beelzebub and Gabriel," Crowley snapped.

He was trying not to think about how it had been Aziraphale who'd gotten the winning argument past the door. Or how he was worse at debating than a gaggle of eleven-years-olds against the Horsepersons of the Apocalypse. Or how, if this was the reason he was here, his chances of success looked as bright as a collapsing star. He swept past Wrong Aziraphale and into an aisle, making sure to hop over the small pile of books tucked into a shadow like a deliberate tripping hazard.

Aziraphale called, "Crowley, where are you going?"

"To get something to drink!" Crowley shouted. "See if you can manage not to discorporate each other before I get back!"

He'd seen stars collapse, before the Fall. A black hole was Hell to escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3. He would not have. Only one of them had spent the past couple thousand years _actually_ at odds with an angel.↩
> 
> 4. Aziraphale met Bram Stoker in the Dublin audience of a _Hamlet_ production. There were many reasons Crowley would not have been there, but Aziraphale tried to save the topic of Ireland for when Crowley had something uniquely irritating.↩


	3. Chapter 3

The wine was in the same spot that it was in the real bookshop.

The best wine was also in the same spot as it was in the real bookshop, which meant it was underneath another crate because Aziraphale thought that Crowley wouldn't move things to pilfer bottles he wanted save for 'special occasions.' And there was an idea. Maybe he could call these two Fake Aziraphale and Fake Crowley and that'd be better? No, then he might start trying to wake himself up from a dream or something.

On one knee in front of a box and dusting a bottle off with his sleeve, Crowley paused. ...Had he tried that?

In a very quiet voice, he said: "Wake up."

He did not wake up.

He also did not wake up when he pinched himself, at which point he gave up, tucked a second and third bottle underneath his arm, and went back out into the bookshop proper.

Wrong Aziraphale was sipping his cocoa and staring at a shelf as if he was browsing it. He had his back turned to Wrong Crowley. Wrong Crowley had resumed pacing and was breathing hard in the manner that reminded Crowley of when he was having serpent impulses. He set down the extra bottles of wine on the annoying table he'd nearly fallen over last night.

Aziraphale turned around and tilted his head. "Does … your Aziraphale keep the glasses somewhere different?"

"No," Crowley said. He tapped the cork in one bottle and suggested strongly that it let him pull it out in one piece.

Aziraphale tutted. "It's not as bad as all that."

"If you take a moment to think, it really is," Crowley said.

Instead Aziraphale took a moment to disappear into the back of the shop and reappear with two glasses and a corkscrew. By then Crowley had already taken a long swig straight from the bottle, but he did accept the proffered glass. Mostly because he was trying to act one step up from how he assumed Wrong Crowley would be acting if given free reign.

"You're just… going to share a drink?" Wrong Crowley asked, from the center of the circle. He'd come to a complete stop. He wasn't even drumming his fingers against his arm.

Aziraphale said nothing while he poured himself a glass of wine.

"He's just - He's just another version of me!" Wrong Crowley said. "And you're sharing a drink with him?"

Aziraphale set his bottle down. " _Crowley_ didn't break into my shop-"

Crowley cleared his throat. "Kind of did. Twice."

"-and set off any of my traps, did he?" Aziraphale asked, like Crowley hadn't spoken.

"Is yours this much of a stubborn arse?" Wrong Crowley asked, swiveling to face Crowley. Aziraphale glared over the rim of his glass.

"Mine was willing to agree with me that he liked Earth better than the prospect of empty, lifeless continents and an eternity of the Sound of Music," Crowley said, dramatically allowing wine to splash into his glass. Not because his hand was shaking, no. He caught Aziraphale cringing from the corner of his eye. "So I'm going to go with no. Both of you cover 'stubborn' and 'arse' twice over all on your own."

Both of them stared at him.

He snapped his fingers and dropped down into an armchair he'd called up from the back of the shop. When he raised his feet a tiny ottoman appeared for them to rest on. Aziraphale looked annoyed, but not annoyed to do anything about it before Crowley started speaking.

"Can we at least all agree that Earth is a lot more fun than upstairs or downstairs?" he asked. He didn't wait for them to answer, although they both opened their mouths. "Great. We are burning daylight and we all know there isn't going to be much of that left unless you two stop arguing. First thing, I need something to call you both. And don't," he said, pointing at Wrong Crowley and letting his voice go low and serious, "tell me you still go by _Crawly._ "

Two counts of ten passed before Wrong Crowley said, like the syllables were being pried from his mouth one by one, "Whatever. You can use Anthony."

"Anthony?" Aziraphale leaned back in his chair, his face furrowed. "Since when?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Anthony said.

"Do you two want to stay on Earth or not? Because I am happy to find my own way back home and leave you both to rot," said Crowley, who had no idea how he'd accomplish that but found making threats cathartic.

Aziraphale looked taken aback.

"Now then, Anthony," Crowley said. He picked up the third bottle of wine, set it on the floor, and rolled it into the circle. "Do you want a glass with that?"

Anthony gave him a closed-lipped smile. He picked the bottle up. "Could use a corkscrew, too."

Crowley raised both eyebrows at Aziraphale.

"Demons who trick people into thinking they've managed to discorporate themselves don't get to keep their powers in a circle," Aziraphale said, sniffing. He gestured and a few key sigils on the floor briefly turned blue, in demonstration.

Crowley opened his mouth, shut it, tossed the corkscrew to Anthony, opened his mouth again, and said, "I don't think I want to know."

Once he had a glass, Anthony poured himself a drink. He drawled, "Let's just say Zira didn't have as much fun that night as he was hoping for."

"Hush," Aziraphale ordered. He was watching his wine, but Crowley didn't miss his eyes flicking up to see whether Anthony was watching him. (Anthony was absolutely watching him.)[5] "Also, I've told you not to call me that."

"Zira, Zira, Zira," Anthony said, grinning. "Should help Crowley tell you apart from Right Aziraphale, anyway."

Crowley rubbed his temple and slid down in his chair. "You didn't call him Zira when you were shoving me into your car."

Anthony scowled, his mouth twisting, and Aziraphale's eyebrows jumped up. Before the angel could begin to speak, Anthony waved dismissively and sank down to the floor. He crossed his legs and put his elbow on his knee. The easy way he settled into position made Crowley wonder how many times the two of them had ended up this way.

Probably more times than they'd shared wine.

"Well. Since I am the only one of me here, I don't see why I should have to go by another name," Aziraphale said. He settled unhappily in his chair. "And if that's quite out of the way, then Crowley, you should get on with explaining how you and… How your Earth managed to convince the divine and demonic armies that Armageddon wasn't in humanity's best interest."

"Oh, we didn't. Armageddon was never about humanity."

Anthony laughed under his breath. "Told you, Zira."

Aziraphale cupped his glass with both hands and said nothing. All the anger had drained from his face. He looked weary.

"We did convince them Armageddon wasn't in _their_ best interests," Crowley said.

And then he explained.

Most of it, anyway. He left out some of the more frightening bits.

"You're telling me you two raised a child together?"

"No! We didn't- It wasn't like-" Crowley stopped. His ears were hot and it didn't have anything to do with the wine bottle he'd refilled twice now. He let a rumbling growl out from the back of his throat and said: "Shut up."

Anthony wet his lips and laughed.

Aziraphale, who had long since draped his jacket over the back of the chair, was eating a sticky toffee pudding he claimed was not the same one Crowley had brought him last night. He scraped some sauce off the plate with the edge of his spoon. "It's probably for the best that didn't happen here, dear boy."

"Oh, he's 'dear boy' now, is he?" Anthony asked. He had laid down on his side in the middle of the circle and propped himself up with an elbow.

Aziraphale glanced sideways at him.

Anthony had not removed his sunglasses. That didn't help hide the fact that he was staring straight at Aziraphale while the angel closed his lips over his spoon and dragged it slowly down.

Calling Aziraphale out for playing dirty was so tempting that if Crowley had seen another demon do it, he would've expected them to win a commendation for it. But it had taken almost an hour to get the two of them down to this level of bickering and Crowley wasn't in the mood to muck it up now.

Also he still wasn't sure what their whole … _thing_ … was, and part of him didn't want to find out.

"Anyway, the point is there's still time for you two to fix things," Crowley said.

Anthony did stop watching Aziraphale then. He tipped his head down to glower at Crowley over the top of his sunglasses. (Is that what that looked like? Was it not intimidating because he actually looked like a sulking snake when he did it, or was it because this was Anthony glowering, and not Crowley? Ugh.)

In his chair, Aziraphale didn't look at either of them. He looked very carefully at his remaining dessert before carving another tiny bite off.

Crowely sighed. "Where did I lose you? Was it the living happily ever part? The nobody died part?"

"Ligur died," Anthony said, dryly.

"If that's the sticking point I'm sure we could find a way to make it happen," Crowley muttered. He tipped his glass in Aziraphale's direction. "You'll have to negotiate with him for holy water on your own."

Aziraphale put his spoon down. "Absolutely not," he said, calmly. Anthony made a face, which he ignored. "Crowley, dear, it's not that we don't believe you. It does seem that your universe is significantly different than ours, though. If your relationship with the wrong Az…" He cleared his throat. "With the _other_ me was core to your success, who knows what other differences could be waiting to trip us up here?"

There was a clock in the shop somewhere. It wasn't visible where they sat, but Crowley could hear it. Could feel it. Counting down the hours to Armageddon.

The wine in his stomach sloshed, and his liver protested, but he felt the edges of his world blur a little bit. Aziraphale - the wrong one - was right about one thing. Armageddon in this universe wasn't something he wanted to face sober.

"But maybe - maybe that's why I'm here, yeah?" Crowley inhaled and regretted it when some ambient dust lodged in his throat and made him cough. He had to pound his fist against his chest. "L-Look, it's not like you have to face the Horsepersons. You don't even have to face the Antichrist. All you have to do is back the kid up!"

"He's afraid of Gabriel," Anthony said. He poured himself more wine and set the bottle down with a _clink._ "Your Aziraphale might have a spine, but mine?"

Aziraphale turned and put his dessert down on the table at his side. Then he pulled a cloth out of his coat. Crowley missed the part where he actually removed the knife from wherever it had been hidden, but there was no crackling fission of a miracle, so it had to have come from his coat too. He began polishing the knife with the cloth.

In the circle, Anthony snorted.

"Come morning, I'm to report to the quartermaster." Aziraphale tilted the knife and rubbed the cloth against a non-existent spot. "I've been quite busy preparing. Making sure the shop is in order. Spiffing up the old uniform." He paused and didn't look at Anthony, but he did sort of clean the knife in the demon's direction. "They expect me to report in full order, you know. Very exacting, the quartermaster. He's already sent me a note reminding me to unpack and bring my sword upstairs."

Anthony went still. Then he asked a question that made no sense at all: "You got that thing back from King Arthur?"

Aziraphale gave him a look. "You didn't really think I let the Round Table throw it into a lake. It was a gift from God Herself, Craw‒ Anthony."

Crowley slid so far down in his chair he was almost on the floor.

"Why didn't you give it to St. George, then?" Anthony asked.

Aziraphale let out half a laugh. Crowley shuddered, and Anthony shoved his glasses back up his nose. It had been a mean laugh. "George hardly needed a flaming sword to dispatch you."

Crowley finished sliding down onto the floor. "Sorry," he said, lifting his head from the seat of the chair. "How the bloody hell did you get stuck with that job? What happened to Bune?"

"Lost one of his heads. I was the closest scaled thing around," Anthony muttered. He sat up all the way and was clearly studying the edge of the circle like he thought he'd missed an obvious exit sign somewhere.

"Until George was finished with you," Aziraphale said.

"Satan's sake, Aziraphale," Crowley groaned. He let his head loll to the side. "Did you forget I know all about that sword?"

Fingers half an inch from one of the binding sigils in the circle, Anthony's eyebrows jumped up.

"You're going to singe yourself again," Aziraphale said, absently, not looking at Anthony at all. He was scanning Crowley's face as if it were a brand new sight.

Crowley deliberately fed some opacity into his glasses to make it harder to read his face. There was no point in giving the angel ammunition he didn't already have.

"What about the sword?" Anthony asked. He scraped at a key symbol with the edge of his nail. It shot off a shower of sparks and sent him scrambling several inches back. Anthony only barely managed not to knock over his still-full wine glass.

"Nothing you need to know," Aziraphale said.

Crowley said, smirking, "Let's just say the quartermaster might have some issue if Aziraphale does report to Heaven." When Aziraphale glared, he shrugged and held both hands up. "You're the one who decided to bring sharp, pointy things back into it. I was just trying to point out that you still have time to _save the world._ Which is going to end, forever, unless you two can work together for five minutes."

Aziraphale and Anthony looked at each other. Aziraphale tightened his grip on the knife. The pale glow of the circle pulsed brighter.

Then the moment cracked. Aziraphale looked away, and Anthony looked down.

"We just can't, Crowley. I'm sorry." And the thing was, Aziraphale sounded genuinely contrite. He hesitantly leaned over and touched his hand to Crowley's shoulder. He looked at the floor. "I have some time to try to research a way to send you home, but I'm afraid our universe… We're just not like you," he murmured. He pulled his hand back to his lap. "Armageddon is inevitable. There's no way to stop it."

In the circle, Anthony sat up and crossed his legs underneath himself. "It's no use. He won't listen. Never does."

"When I listen to you, I get humiliated in the middle of the entire court," Aziraphale told his clasped hands. Bitter lines creased his face.

"You - _You_ get humiliated? _You're_ talking about humiliation? You?" Anthony demanded. He sprang to his feet and the way he moved forward reminded Crowley of a snake striking - Except that Anthony managed to stop short of slamming face-first into the circle wall. "Do you remember the Hellfire Club? Or if we're talking about Camelot, let's talk about Camelot. Or would you like to dig all the way back to Athens, Principality?"

Aziraphale's hands clenched together. He blinked rapidly for a moment and then lifted his chin. "Athens only happened because of Egypt. May I remind you whose fault that was?"

Crowley pressed his hands to his ears. It made looking up at the ceiling awkward, but he managed.

"Is this punishment for making fun of Aziraphale still having those old satin shoes?" he asked. "Is this to make sure we don't end up like them? Because I swore I wouldn't do it again, and you know my promises to him count a lot more than any other promises I've ever made."

Aziraphale turned to stare at him. "Who on Earth are you talking to?"

"Not on Earth," Anthony said. He kicked the edge of the circle. The shock of lightning that struck out at him left a glow over his leg for a moment, and he shuddered in pain, but he didn't step backward again. "You're talking to Her, right? She's not going to answer, She never does."

"Crawly," Aziraphale whispered. He started to slip forward, caught himself, and ended up standing by the edge of the circle. His eyes were wide. "Do you - Do you still talk to Her?"

Anthony hit the back of his hand against the circle. It flared furiously bright, and left burned streaks along his fingers. The rings on his fingers glowed with heat. At his feet his shadow grew so dark it looked solid. Curving arches of wings sprouted from it, tucked in tight against his silhouette, the ends falling just short of burning against the binding sigils.

"It'sss not _Crawly._ "

"Saving one universe should really be enough," Crowley told God.

Aziraphale bit his lower lip. He opened his mouth.

A knock at the door cut him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5. The sunglasses hid it, but Crowley had been wearing sunglasses for thousands of years and he knew what that head tilt meant.↩


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't see why I have to hide back here," Crowley protested, as Aziraphale ushered him behind what at first he thought was a well-dressed assortment of scarecrows and turned out to be an overloaded coat rack. He tried digging his heels into the floor, but Aziraphale pressed his palms flat against Crowley's back and pushed.

Aziraphale being unfairly strong turned out to be a universal constant. Crowley almost smashed his face against the wall.

"I do not wish to explain you to a soldier or an Archangel," Aziraphale hissed.

Crowley whipped around. "What about him?"

Aziraphale already had his knife back out and was stomping toward the door. "Who?" he asked, while Anthony took a drink of wine straight from the bottle. "The querulous demon I've handily captured just in time for Armageddon?"

"S'a point," Crowley conceded.

He tried to keep an eye on the door as Aziraphale stopped before it and took a deep breath as the visitor knocked again. But Anthony caught him and made a downward motion with his hand, so Crowley reluctantly hunkered down behind some of the coats. There were so many, some must've been abandoned by customers trying to get away before Aziraphale caught them looking too longingly at the books.

Aziraphale opened the door. "Hello," he said. And then, "Oh. I'm terribly sorry, but we are closed until - until forever, as it happens."

"Don't worry, I'm not here to shop," a woman's voice said.

Crowley frowned.

"How nice," Aziraphale said, clearly confused. "I must go back to my - excuse me, Miss! Miss, you can't be in here."

"This is a very impressive circle. I've never seen one powered up before," the woman said. There was the sound of heeled footsteps - Crowley strained his hearing and thought, from long experience, that the heels were probably three inches high - and Aziraphale's softer ones just behind. "Hello!"

She had to have been talking to Anthony, but it wasn't Anthony who answered. "Miss," Aziraphale said, sharply. "You must leave this instant. Please don't make me do something drastic."

"Where's the other one?" More footsteps, coming around to this side of the circle. "The prophecy is very clear, there are supposed to be two of you."

"There are two of us," Anthony said, slowly.

Prophecy. Prophecy?

Crowley tried to peek out from behind a sleeve. From this angle all he could get a glimpse of was Anthony turning to follow the progress of the apparently not-an-Archangel visitor.

"Prophecy?" Aziraphale asked. He came into view, too, briefly. The knife was still in his hand. "Who exactly are you? You aren't - You're _quite_ human, you shouldn't be able to see Craw - to see Anthony at all."

"She's a witch, Zira," Anthony said.

"A witch? How would you know?"

Anthony drawled with more syllables than was really necessary: "You did get me burned as one."

Aziraphale stammered. Whatever he said, Crowley couldn't make it out.

"I'm an occultist, actually. That's a very nice knife. Would you like to see mine?"

"Book girl!" Crowley blurted, bursting out from behind the coat rack.

Anathema's face lit up.

So at least there was one person who was glad to see him.

Aziraphale and Anthony, who'd been facing her, turned around to stare at him too. Anthony was scowling again, though that was probably because of the whole getting burned as a witch thing, which was already more than Crowley wanted to know. Aziraphale's lips were pursed and for the first time since Crowley had met him, he looked like he wasn't entirely sure if he should be holding a dagger.

"There you are," Anathema said.

"You know who I am?"

Crowley swung around the edge of the circle, careful to keep opposite side from Aziraphale. He was trying not to grin, but… Somebody who knew who he was, and Anathema was a witch, after all, if anybody knew how to send him home, to the right London, to his Aziraphale…

It'd been almost twenty-four hours. Crowley remembered what he'd been like only four hours after Aziraphale vanished. Sure, _he_ hadn't disappeared in a flaming bookshop, but he had disappeared.

"Sure," Anathema said. "You're the twin serpent with a head of flame."

Nothing came out when Crowley opened his mouth.

Voice tight, Aziraphale demanded, "Will someone explain what is going on?"

"Just a moment. May I?" Anathema set her bag down on the table where Aziraphale had been eating without waiting to be given permission.

Aziraphale shot Crowley an accusatory look.

"This isn't how it went in my universe, all right?" Crowley said.

Anathema looked like Anathema. Well, she looked like the right Anathema. Well, what he meant was, she looked like a witch.

"Universes? You're from an alternate universe? Oh, nobody had guessed that. I thought you were going to be a hive mind in multiple bodies," she said, shaking her head.

Crowley and Anthony shared a look. That was all the confirmation Crowley needed to know that Eric was in this universe too. And he wouldn't have been caught with that workload even before getting fired.

Anathema opened her bag and began rummaging through it. Her hair was done up in the usual style - they'd seen her a couple of times since Armageddon, or rather she'd seen them and Crowley had been too lazy to leave the park. She wore a black top and a vivid orange skirt that swept all the way down to a pair of black heeled boots (three inches, Crowley had been right).

Anathema pulled out her bread knife[6] and then a very familiar book. "How does that work, being from another universe?"

"I've got no bloody clue," Crowley said. He pointed at the book. "That had better be what I think it is."

"Can someone please explain what is happening here!" Aziraphale pleaded. The dagger was gone again.

Anathema put her knife away, too, and clutched her book to her chest. The cover wasn't visible, but Crowley recognized the binding. His hands itched. It was hard not to jump a few feet forward and yank the book from her hands.

Was this how Aziraphale felt about most books? That would explain a lot.

When he got back he was going to - He was going to - Threaten to rob a library, or something. Get Aziraphale all excited about books and give him the chance for some old-fashioned scolding at the same time.

"I'm Anathema Device. It's an old family name," Anathema said. She glanced back and forth between Aziraphale and the two demons. "You must be… the Principality."

Aziraphale paled. He and Anthony exchanged a long look - their expressions must have been doing something, but Crowley wasn't paying attention, he was just trying to inch closer to Anathema. The book must be different here too, right? Anathema hadn't known about the universe hopping, but that didn't mean Agnes hadn't known.

He would get back. He _would._

"What exactly is a Principality, anyway? Religious texts disagree so much, and my family-" Anathema started.

"Guards things," Crowley said, which earned him some sputtering protest from Aziraphale's corner. "Look, that's Agnes's book, right?"

Aziraphale gasped. There was an odd sound that turned out to be, when Crowley glanced over, the noise of him clamping his palm across his mouth.

Anthony had taken a step back. His upper lip curled. That was sort of interesting.

Not interesting enough to ask about, though.

Anathema's smile grew tinny. She reached up with her free hand to adjust her glasses, and pulled the book tighter against herself. "You seem to know an awful lot about me."

"Not used to that, are you?" Crowley couldn't help himself, he flashed a grin. It was a broad, sharp, demonic grin. A suitably impressed Anathema blinked. He explained, "I know you in the other universe. I'm Crowley, the other one's Anthony, that one's Aziraphale."

"Are we… friends?"

"Oh, yeah, we go way back," said Crowley, who had once again already forgotten Anathema's last name. In his phone, she just came up as the knife emoji.

A hand on his shoulder did not make him jump, of course it didn't. But he did move enough that Aziraphale pulled away and locked both his hands behind his back. "Do I understand correctly," he said, swallowing, "that you are a descendent of _the_ Agnes Nutter?"

Anathema exhaled. "This is not at all how I expected this to go," she whispered, probably to herself. Then she stuck a hand out. "Yes. I am one of Agnes's descendants, and I've been tasked with an ancient family prophecy to hunt down the heart of evil and use all of the wisdom and witchcraft at my disposal to destroy it."

In the middle of the circle, Anthony let out a tiny, creaking groan.

Aziraphale stared at Anathema's hand, his brows drawn together. "But then why are you here?"

"Oh, Agnes sent me." Anathema seemed to realize that Aziraphale was too confused to shake her hand back, so she gave up and turned the book around.

Sure enough, it was emblazoned with gold script reading _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter._

Aziraphale's blue eyes had gotten mysteriously wet. He blinked rapidly and swallowed again before he spoke. "May I… May I see the book? It had been my understanding," he said, his jaw briefly clenching, "that every existing copy was destroyed."

"You got me _burned at the ssstake,_ " Anthony hissed.

Aziraphale spun around. "Not on purpose!"

"They're always like this," Crowley said, sidling around to stand at Anathema's elbow.

It would be so easy to yank the book from her arms and dash off with it, but even he had to admit he'd need her or Aziraphale's help to decipher the thing, and the only available Aziraphale was preoccupied with arguing why blessing a volley of witch hunters did not make him responsible for the witches (and demons) they went on to burn.

"I'm not surprised," Anathema said. She opened the book and pointed at a line of bunched, bold text. "Prophecy 1921: _In Londone town ye shalle find a Serpent with two heads of Flame. The Serpent tries to eate itself, but beware moste of all the byte of Historie._ "

"I'm not trying to eat myself," Crowley said. "If anyone's trying to eat anyone, it's those two."

"Yes, that's literally what the prophecy is saying," Anathema said.

Crowley made a face. He tried to lean over to read into the book, but Anathema angled it away from him. "Does it - Does it say anything else about me?"

"Yes! It says a lot about all three of you."

"Maybe just… flip to the end?"

Anathema shook her head. She closed the book and recited from memory, "Prophecy 5003: _Do not informe the Serpent howe it all Endes, until the Ende._ "

A pulsing ache began to build at the base of Crowley's skull. He ground out, "That's… terrific."

"I'm here to make sure you all get to the ende - the end." Anathema cleared her throat.

"Mmm."

Anthony stopped in the middle of describing the thirteen levels of torment required to fill out reincorporation paperwork and threw his hands in the air. Aziraphale moved to poke him in the chest and got shocked by his own circle in the process. Which made Anthony burst out laughing and bump his hand into the circle wall. Each time, the circle sparked white wherever either of them touched it.

Crowley looked at Anathema. "My universe is very different."

"I wish Agnes had seen that. I would've prepared so many questions. How else is your universe different? Is right still right?"

Behind her glasses, her eyes shone, and Crowley cringed. Rule number something-high-up-there when engaging with humans: don't let them know you're an immortal supernatural being, or they'll start asking weird morality questions.

And Hell wasn't any better about questions than Heaven had been.

Then Anathema asked, "Is left still left? There are so many potential differences we might not even know about! You could perceive color on a completely different spectrum, or, or maybe key points of your history are different, or - ooh, has your universe worked out perpetual motion already?"

Crowley decided to drop down into Aziraphale's empty chair.

"Sorry, sorry." Anathema looked around and tucked herself into the other empty chair. Her orange skirt poofed up around her legs. "It's just that all the best sources theorize about parallel universes but almost no one has actually been able to visit one before. Not anyone who's been allowed to talk about it, at least."

"Uh-huh."

In his own universe, where he never had to hear Aziraphale say things like "Anthony, it is not my fault you thought it was funny to tell Pulsifer _seventeen,_ you should have known better," Anathema had a habit of texting him wild conspiracy articles and posts buried in obscure forums to see if he knew 'the truth.' Normally Crowley tossed a coin to decide whether to answer yes or no.[7]

Anathema frowned. "But if you're here, then… How is me - I mean, is your version of me, oh, this is confusing."

"Tell me about it."

"My point is," Anathema said, thankfully missing the way Crowley grimaced, "how is your universe stopping the end of the world if you're not in the world?"

"Armageddon's old news." Crowley sank down in the chair, letting his legs sprawl out. "We handled that months ago."

"Really!"

"Oh, yeah, off without a hitch."

Anthony redirected from telling Aziraphale, "They were going to pulp all the books anyway, you never would've gotten your hands on one," to interject, "Don't believe anything Crowley says. He babysat the wrong Antichrist for years."

Crowley made a face at him.

Anathema leaned over to look at the watch on Crowley's wrist and stood up. "Unfortunately, I don't have time to ask about that. We really are behind. My bus was already half an hour late and we have things to do."

"Yes," Aziraphale said. He took a step back from the circle. "I have much, much better things to be doing right now."

"Yes," Anathema agreed. She flipped the book open to a specific page and held it up. "You need to read this."

Hands held in front of himself, Aziraphale went completely still.

Anathema looked at Crowley, and then at Anthony. "Is he okay? He doesn't seem to be breathing."

"He's just like this," Crowley assured her.

Anthony crossed his arms over his chest again. His knuckles still looked reddened where he'd hit the circle one too many times. One of his black rings had red marks on either side where it must've burned his finger. He tilted his chin all the way back to stare at the ceiling as Anathema gently pressed the book into Aziraphale's hands.

Aziraphale started to take it, then abruptly yanked back as if burned. "Wait, wait," he said, and darted into the back of the shop.

Anathema blinked. She looked at Crowley, then Anthony, then frowned. "Why are you trapped in an occult circle?"

"Who says I'm trapped?" Anthony asked, still looking at the ceiling.

"Can you walk over those sigils?" Anathema asked, slowly.

It was a question with an obvious answer, which Anthony was saved from having to confront because Aziraphale reappeared.

He was now wearing glasses, and thin white gloves. Once he'd taken the book from Anathema's hands, she got up and offered him her seat. He very gingerly sat down and placed the book across the solid plane of his thighs. His fingers trembled as he opened it to the page Anathema indicated. Behind his glasses, it looked like his pupils had swallowed half his eyes.

When Crowley checked, Anthony had lowered his head so he could watch Aziraphale from the corner of his eye.

"It's prophecy 3008," Anathema said.

"Is that how you knew to come here?" Aziraphale asked. He turned the pages slowly and seemed reluctant to continue doing so, except that Anathema cleared her throat.

"No, that's prophecy 1920: _The Principalitie makes his home in a shoppe of books which are never solde. Ye shalle discover him with the Serpent there._ Online reviews for London bookshops strongly suggested no one buys books here."

Crowley asked, "How do you pronounce things like that?"

This Anathema blinked the same way his own Anathema had. Tilted her head to the side in the exact same way, too. "Pronounce things like what?"

"Never mind."

"Oh my," Aziraphale whispered.

Anthony spoke before Crowley could. "What?"

Lightly resting his fingertips over the page - but not actually touching it - Aziraphale said, "Prophecy 3008."

He inhaled deeply enough to stretch his ribs and lift his shoulders. Then he read, in a slightly resonating voice that called to mind a distant memory of the Heavenly choir at break times, when angels had rested in random corners and sung fragmented phrases of lyrics Crowley could no longer speak.

Anthony looked at the floor.

" _When that the angel readeth these words of mine, in his shoppe of other menne's books, then the final hours are certes upon us,_ " Aziraphale recited. There was almost no pause between that sentence and the next, but something in his expression cracked all the same. A shadow settled in his eyes. Probably the wrong moment to ask how he also managed to pronounce things that way. " _Open thine eyes and ears and hearts to understand. Shutte your angery strikes and lay downe your bitterness as you onse did youre…_ "

There had never been a moment for Crowley to actually read the book (or, okay, there had been, but he'd been far more interested in drinking himself into near-discorporation at that point) in his own universe. He had never seen the prophecy their Agnes Nutter wrote for Aziraphale. But Aziraphale had told him. Crowley knew it didn't go like this.

He also had a suspicion about how that sentence ended and why Aziraphale didn't want to read it. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep the reflexive smirk from popping up.

Anathema gave a friendly little go-on motion. "It's really better to just do as Agnes says."

Aziraphale pressed his lips together.

"You're lucky," Anathema insisted. "Usually it's not nearly this clear. Also, I will recite the rest of it if you don't."

"Jusst read it, Zira," Anthony muttered. "Let'ss get this over with."

"Fine." Squaring his shoulders, Aziraphale read, " _Shutte your angery strikes and lay downe your bitterness as you onse did youre sworde, for the Betterment of Mankind. Open and understand, I do say, foolish principalittee, and you had bettre reade all of this aloud, for Anathema wille know if ye do not._ "

"Foolish Principality," Anthony snickered. Then his eyebrows narrowed. "What's 'laid down your sword' supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Pure poppycock." Aziraphale closed the book. It wasn't quite a slam, but it did make a sound. He stood up. Crowley noted that he did not make a move to hand the book back to Anathema, even though she held her hand out for it.

" _Poppycock,_ " Anthony said. He looked at Crowley. "What's he talking about?"

"Agnes is always right," Anathema said.

Crowley told Anthony, "It's going to be much funnier if we make him say it."

"Also, I am not bitter," Aziraphale said. He still hadn't given the book back to Anathema. "Are you sure this is the right book? Perhaps there was a copying error."

"Am I sure?" Anathema adjusted her glasses threateningly. Crowley knew from adjusting glasses, and the way the lens caught the light and threw it at Aziraphale was definitely a challenge. "Am I sure that a book my family has safeguarded, memorized, cataloged, and devoted ourselves to for generations is in fact Agnes's writing? Or do I think that my mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and my great great grandmother, Virtue Nutter, mistakenly studied the wrong book for four centuries?"

"You could have simply said yes," Aziraphale said. He very reluctantly allowed Anathema to take the book from him.

Anthony cleared his throat and waited for Aziraphale to look at him. "You've been on my case about that book for four hundred years," he said. "So the way I see it, either you were wrong about it - in which case I'd like to hear you admit as much - or you should just tell us what the damned prophecy means, Zira."

Aziraphale laced his gloved fingers together. "It - It was a long time ago."

Deciding this conversation didn't immediately apply to her, Anathema turned to pack her book back into her bag. Then she picked up a wine bottle and squinted at the label. Aziraphale absently miracled up a new glass for her, although he missed the little jump it made Anathema do and the way she poked the glass before hesitantly picking it up.

"Aziraphale," Crowley said, sighing. Aziraphale looked at him, and he lifted his sunglasses so the angel could see his eyes. "You want to know the difference between you and my Aziraphale? Mine told me this before it even _rained._ "

"Oh," Aziraphale said. Eyes round, mouth downturned, he looked like he'd been struck. "I… But… But when did you two speak?"

"Slithered up the wall to say hi."

"The wall?" Anthony asked. "You aren't talking about Eden. Come on."

So that was the difference between him and this Crowley. Or the first one, anyway. Crowley abruptly felt the weight of his sunglasses blocking his eyes. At his sides, his hands twitched. Adjusting them was a tell he'd trained himself out of centuries ago - at least in human company, which Anathema did number among. He stuck his fingers into his pockets and started to grind his teeth instead.

"You did?" Aziraphale looked at Anthony. "Did you - Did you see me, in Eden?"

"Does it matter?"

"I wouldn't ask if it didn't matter, Anthony!" Aziraphale said, his voice climbing.

Anthony touched his tongue to his teeth. "'Course I sssaw you," he muttered. His hands were clenched so hard his fingers had all gone pale. Maybe his fancy clothes only had fake pockets.

Aziraphale stared at him for a long moment. The next breath he let out shuddered a bit. "When Eve and Adam left the garden, she was already expecting. That nasty storm was brewing and I had no idea how bad it was going to be or even what it was going to be, but I knew it would be much worse outside the walls than inside," he said. He was plucking at the fingers of his gloves. "I could hardly let them go out there all on their own."

"Aziraphale," Anthony said. "That did not answer the question."

Quickly glancing down and back up, Aziraphale mumbled, "I gave it away."

Anthony leaned forward. "You what?"

"I gave it away!" Aziraphale blurted. "I gave Adam and Eve the sword."

Anthony's jaw dropped, then stayed there.

"Oh, Anthony, you must remember, the sword was lit with holy fire, and it was going to be so _dark._ "

Several sounds came out of Anthony's throat then. None of them amounted to words.

It was weird to watch this happen from the outside. Crowley twisted to pick up a random glass of wine.

Eyes wet, Aziraphale blinked several times and put his glasses down on the table. "And now it's all falling to pieces," he said. He folded his gloves up and put those down, too. "I tried and tried to consider any way around this. I know you don't think I did, Crowley, but ever since Gabriel told me the Antichrist was on Earth I have been thinking… But everything says it's going to happen. It's all over. We've used our time up."

Crowley opened his mouth.

"I haven't used my time up," Anathema cut in. She lifted her chin. "And it's not written everywhere. Agnes says I'm to help save the world, and I intend to do so."

Aziraphale looked from her to Crowley.

He closed his mouth. Spread his hands before speaking. Some wine sloshed over the rim of his glass. "There's still a whole day. I did it once. How hard can it be to do again?"

Aziraphale hesitated for so long that Crowley could _feel_ the seconds burning away.

But at last he said, "Very well then. I - I suppose there may still be some hope."

"That's the spirit!" Crowley may have been beaming. Demons didn't go weak in the knees or anything as human as that, especially not demons whose bodies had as tenuous a grasp on limbs as Crowley's, but he also felt his first approximation of relief since nearly getting a dagger in his gut the night before.

"Are you going," Anthony asked, tapping the circle just lightly enough to light it up, "to let me out?"

"Oh. Yes, I. I must, mustn't I?" Aziraphale mumbled. He hesitated, then got down on one knee. The dagger was in his hand again (how on Earth did he keep doing that?) and he used it to neatly cut a line through the white chalk on the floor.

The circle flared. The light sputtered out.

Anthony tentatively took a step over the edge. When he didn't get zapped again, he groaned and snatched the wine from Crowley's hand. "I really never want to do that again."

"You could have punched the circle less," Crowley pointed out.

Anthony hissed and stumbled forward to slouch against a bookcase. "If the Antichrist is as hard to talk to as Aziraphale, we're going to fail."

Aziraphale walked around to stand in front of Anthony. Anthony stopped with the wine glass half raised to his mouth. Aziraphale held one hand out. His face looked like he was prepared for a holy war, but his hand was empty. No dagger.

A long, long moment passed before Anthony returned the gesture.

"Six thousand years," Aziraphale said, shaking his hand. He laughed nervously. "First time for everything."

Anthony's smile was slow and hot and not at all bitter. "We've held hands in the past six thousand years, Aziraphale. Or did you forget about my stint as the Countess?"

Aziraphale immediately dropped his hand and whirled around. His face was red. "Anathema, my dear girl. You must be exhausted and I'm afraid I've given you a most terrible welcome. Please, come with me, I have some proper food for you to eat."

"Oh, I ate on the bus," Anathema started to say, but Aziraphale took her elbow and marched her into the back of the shop before she could finish.

Anthony didn't explain, but the way he adjusted his glasses bled satisfaction.

Crowley sat down and tried not to laugh. Tried, and failed. He wanted to clasp his own Aziraphale's hand in his so badly he could feel the press of Aziraphale's ring against his skin. It gave his spiral of laughter a stinging edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6. Which was bigger than Aziraphale's, if not sharper.↩
> 
> 7. Although occasionally she hit on a piece of history he had actually sat through, and sometimes he couldn't resist telling someone how annoying George Gordon Byron had really been.↩


	5. Chapter 5

The crackle of burning ozone filled Crowley's throat. It shook him awake.

At some point the previous evening, he'd slouched down into an armchair and put his feet up on an ottoman. He'd come very, very close to claiming the couch as usual, but Aziraphale had miracled up a pillow for Anathema and she'd beaten him to it. All his attention had been on making sure Anthony didn't edge him out for the couch. But then Anthony had claimed he didn't sleep and Crowley had gotten distracted arguing about how much of a lie that was.

Now he tumbled to his feet and nearly tripped over Anthony. Who, after all that posturing, had ended up sideways in a chair with his knees pulled up against his chest. The other demon was so asleep that his mouth hung open.

"Ha!" Crowley said.

Anthony jerked awake. Crowley had anticipated that. He had not anticipated the way Anthony would strike out, or the knife in Anthony's hand, or how it would catch the dim sunlight filtering in around the edge of Aziraphale's curtains.

"What _is_ it with you people and stabbing me?" Crowley demanded, scampering backward.

Anthony stopped abruptly, the knife halfway through its arc. He let out a little bit of a groan. "You haven't been stabbed yet, you big whiner," he said. Then he pressed his hand to his throat. "What is that?"

Oh. Right. The reason Crowley had woken up.

He cleared his throat. The aftertaste of ozone lingered on the back of his tongue, even when he smacked at the air. Ugh. All the wine bottles had been put away - must've been Aziraphale's doing.

For a moment _want_ struck Crowley so hard in the chest it rattled his ribs.

This was the bookshop. Mostly. It had (mostly) the same titles, he'd checked. It had (mostly) the same layout, with this Aziraphale's … unique additions to customer deterrents. It had _an_ Aziraphale. Who put away wine bottles while Crowley slept, and ate sticky toffee pudding Crowley had bought him, and was positively _not his Aziraphale._

Crowley exhaled, trying force out the want and the ozone feeling, both.

"Seriously," Anthony said. His shoulders twitched, and he spun around, so that Anathema blinking awake caught sight of the knife and looked skeptically at him. "What is that?"

"Just angel energy. Aziraphale must be … doing something," Crowley said. But the rattling in his ribs crept back into his spine, and stung along his shoulderblades, and he had to pull away from the urge to unfurl his wings.

The way Anthony used his free hand to rub at his back suggested he felt the same. "This is not Aziraphale."

Anathema pushed herself upright. "I have to agree, this feels much…" She scrunched up her nose. "Sharper."

There was a pause.

The sunlight edging its way around Aziraphale's old yellow curtains grew brighter.

"Archangel," Crowley muttered, which instantly prompted Anthony to say, "Fuck."

Crowley snapped his fingers. Really snapped his fingers, not to make a miracle. "Upstairs, book girl."

"You can't talk to me like-"

"I am also going upstairs. Trust me, you don't want to get caught by an Archangel any more than either of us," Crowley told her.

He'd already started moving toward the spiral staircase. He shouldn't have left the tire iron at the front of the shop, should've kept it to hand. But even a sliver of demonic magic right now would scream _'Come and get me!'_ Plus, the ozone was so thick that even Anathema was trying to clear it out of her throat. She pushed her blanket off onto the floor and only paused to sweep her bag onto her shoulder before following Crowley up the steps.

"What's an Archangel doing here?" Anathema asked. "Don't they have things to do?"

"Don't get me started," Crowley said.

At the top of the stairs Anathema took several anxious steps past him. Crowley ducked behind a bookshelf so he wouldn't be visible from the first floor. He gestured for Anathema to follow.

She dropped to her knees on the floor and opened her bag. "Aziraphale must be outside, talking to them. He said he wasn't expected to report until ten and it's barely even seven. Maybe something happened and they're trying to make him come early. Agnes didn't say anything about this. I don't think she said anything about this," she said, her voice getting progressively quieter as Crowley made hush-up motions. She pulled the book out of her bag.

Crowley turned back to the stairs. A small glow resonated from he first floor. He couldn't imagine what it was like for any schmuck unlucky enough to be outside. Whoever this was had stopped giving a fuck about miracling humans into ignorance. Probably figured they'd all be dead soon, so what did it matter?

He turned to Anthony to hiss as much and only came face-to-face with a leather-bound Bible.

"Oh, fuck me."

"What?"

Crowley's shoulders did that itching thing again. He shuffled backwards and crouched on the ground next to Anathema. "Anthony didn't follow us, that wanker."

Anathema reached up with both hands to adjust her glasses, but her fingertips brushed skin. Glasses must still be downstairs. She sighed and squinted as she held the book up to her face instead. "Maybe he tried going out the back door."

"No." Crowley took a deep breath as he heard the door downstairs swing open.

There was no whiff of demonic energy. Just an overwhelming torrent of divine force that made his lungs feel full of mud. He pressed his forehead against the nearest bookshelf, which despite being full of Bibles had less of a bite to it than whoever had just waltzed into the shop with Aziraphale.

Squinting at more pages, Anathema said, "Agnes was very clear about there being two serpents at the end." She paused. "Why does she call you a serpent, anyway?"

"Shhh."

Anathema made a face but didn't speak again.

It was difficult to hear more than the obscured sounds of two voices at first, but eventually the footsteps grew close to the stairwell and Aziraphale said in an overloud voice, "As you can see I have almost all of my things in order. I can be up in a matter of no time, I just have a few more things to attend to here."

"Aziraphale, the shop will not be here after the war. There's no reason to stay and fuss over the details."

Anathema mouthed, _'Who's that?'_ and Crowley held up one hand in an _'I'm supposed to know?'_ gesture.

Aziraphale's answering "Oh" was so quiet they could barely hear it. Then he said, "Oh. Of course. But I simply wouldn't feel right, leaving behind such a mess."

"It is a bit of a mess," the other angel said, unfairly.

"Yes, I'm afraid I… I had a bit of a dust-up with a demon. Not that I had any trouble, mind you," Aziraphale said. "But he did make a spectacular fuss on his way out."

"That explains the residue."

Crowley scowled and Anathema made an arcing gesture around her head. He knew from experience in his own universe - the universe that didn't suck - that it was her sign for talking about aura stuff. That did not, in fact, make it any better.

"Y...es," Aziraphale agreed. There was a brief pause. For a second Crowley would have sworn he could see the gleam rising to Aziraphale's eyes. "In fact, that's the task I wanted to take care of. If I don't, the shop may become a beacon for demons during Armageddon. Why don't you go on ahead and let the quartermaster know I'll be along soon, Uriel?"

 _"Mmph."_ Crowley pressed his mouth against his sleeve just in time to cut off the choking sound.

Anathema blinked at him.

Charades had never been his thing, though. He couldn't think of a single way to communicate that when the newly-crowned Satan had wanted a shortcut to spoiling God's latest project, he'd sent Crowley to talk to Uriel. Or a proper pantomime to further explain that Crowley had managed to convince Uriel, the Archangel on guard duty, to point him the quick way to Earth. Or how to mime that Uriel held a grudge about the whole thing. Wherever this Aziraphale kept his copy of _Paradise Lost_ wasn't within easy reach.

"I have orders, Aziraphale," Uriel said. Then, abruptly, "What the hell is that?"

"What's - Oh," Aziraphale said, at the same time Crowley covered his face with both hands.

Anathema leaned out around the bookshelf to try to glimpse the first floor through the stair railing. Her eyes got huge a split second before the front door actually burst open. She could probably see something beyond what was literally happening.

What was literally happening:

The door didn't so much slam open as crash off its hinges and tumble to the floor (Aziraphale gasped so loud, Crowley could hear it over all the clattering).

Anathema crept toward the stairs to get a better look, so Crowley gave up and did too, wrapping a quick invisibility miracle around them. The shop was now so flooded with demonic energy that it was unlikely the Archangel would notice anyway.

Uriel started to leap back and faltered mid-jump because Aziraphale wasn't moving at all. She scowled, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hauled him out of the center of the shop just in time for him to not get hit by the giant serpent blasting through the door.

What was literally happening was that Anthony had turned into an excessively huge snake - fifty, sixty feet long, Crowley would guess - and was staging a dramatic invasion of the bookshop.

And it _was_ dramatic.

Anthony had destroyed the door but blackened the doorway to opaque shadow behind him. He hissed and knocked over piles of books.[8] When Aziraphale darted forward to catch a specific book before it hit the floor, Anthony acted like he was being chased by a holy warrior and theatrically disappeared into the shadows behind the bookcases, hissing all the while.

Crowley decided to help him and miracled most of the lights out.

"As I said," Aziraphale said, anxiously checking the corners of the book he'd rescued, "a dust-up. Armageddon's so close, you know, demons are taking the wildest of liberties."

"I can see that," Uriel muttered.

The look on her face made Crowley wrap a second layer of invisibility around himself.

From the shadows of the bookshop, Anthony's voice hissed. Uriel scowled and Aziraphale blinked, startled. There were a lot of shadows in the bookshop, and it sounded like Anthony was speaking from every one of them at once.

_"I'm not done with you yet, Aziraphale."_

Aziraphale sighed.

Upstairs, Crowley winced. C'mon, angel, catch on.

"We don't have ti-" And then Aziraphale stopped. Blinked. Glanced back at Uriel, who had one hand cupped at her side, ready to conjure either flame or a sword. Please not flame. Aziraphale bit his lip briefly. "Yes, I - Yes, I expected you to try to get in the last word. Foul fiend."

Anathema looked at him. Crowley shook his head.

_"Don't think you can outrun me. Once Armageddon'sss begun, I'll be looking for you **ssspecially**."_

Aziraphale turned to Uriel. "I'm terribly sorry, he's always like this."

_"Excussse me!"_

"I am aware of what the Serpent is like," Uriel said, stiffly. Definitely still sore about the Earth thing.

 _"Fight me now or I'll pick off all your good little soldier angelsss one by one."_ Anthony laughed. Even Crowley was startled by how evil a cackle that was. Anthony must have had more reason to practice. _"None of you are immune to venom, Zira."_

Uriel tugged her jacket straight and touched the bow at her throat. "I do not have time to deal with this unremarkable demon, Principality Aziraphale."

_**"Unremarkable!"** _

"I'll take care of it straight away," Aziraphale promised.

_"I am going to bite you in half, Principality."_

"Don't worry about a thing, Uriel, please. I'll be along the moment I've slain this terrible beast."

Crowley muttered, "Beast is a little low," which got him Anathema's elbow in his gut.

"I will tell the quartermaster to expect you shortly," Uriel said. She threw a glare into the shadows of the shop.

A high wind ripped through the shelves, knocking over several books that been left at precarious edges by Anthony's rampage. Aziraphale couldn't stop himself from letting out a little cry. It was fine. When the wind hit Uriel, she vanished.

The wind knocked a few other things down before hitting the doorway to the shop and obliterating Anthony's shadow barrier.

Sunlight spilled in on Aziraphale wringing his hands.

Sighing, Crowley picked himself up. He shook off the invisibility miracle from himself and from Anathema, so by the time they got down the stairs Aziraphale could see them both. "It's alright, angel," he said. He couldn't help it. Aziraphale turned to him, eyes wide, and Crowley shrugged. "Could be worse. Uriel could've burned the place down."

"Oh - Oh dear," Aziraphale said. "Did that happen to…? Oh."

Maybe Crowley shouldn't have told him, because Aziraphale was so distracted he missed Anthony slinking out from the back of the shop. Human-shaped, this time, and scowling. Anthony walked up to Aziraphale, tapping his shoulder to get his attention.

And somebody somewhere must've had a soft spot for Anthony, because when Aziraphale whipped around all he did was punch the demon in the gut, not stab him.

Aziraphale gasped. "You know better than to sneak up on me!"

Anthony coughed from the floor. He put his hands down but didn't move to get up. "You knew I was here! Some thanksss."

"Look at what you did to my shop," Aziraphale protested.

Anthony sneered. "Terrific job, Anthony," he said, mimicking Aziraphale's accent. Crowley had to swallow a laugh. "So nice of you. Thanks ever so much for making sure I didn't get whisked off by a scary Archangel who definitely thinks I still have my flaming sword."

"Yes. Well." Aziraphale fidgeted. "I do not say 'ever so much.'"

"Or 'thank you,' apparently."

"Okay, we really do not have time for another round of this," Crowley cut in.

Telling his own Aziraphale not to call him nice was one thing. Hearing himself complain about not hearing it stung.

Of course, nowadays, Aziraphale seemed to take abominable pleasure in needling Crowley with effusive thank-yous for the littlest reason. He'd become especially fond of doing it in public, where it was harder to put up a fuss. Neither of them worried about miracle rationing any longer but it was such an effort to make a whole mess of humans look away just because Aziraphale had smiled and slyly called him _kind._

He wanted Armageddon to be over with so he could get back and complain about Aziraphale telling him how charitable it had been, saving a whole other universe.

Anathema looked at her watch. "Crowley is right, we should get out of here. Not just because it seemed that … other person … would send more people to look for you, Aziraphale. If we don't leave soon, we're going to miss the bus back to Tadfield."

Crowley and Anthony both stared at her.

She stared back. "What?"

"We won't be needing to take the bus, my dear," Aziraphale explained.

Anathema leaned forward into the gap between the front seats of the Bentley. "Are you sure we shouldn't have taken the bus?"

Aziraphale let out a small sound. Crowley couldn't see his face, but he could imagine the crease of annoyance between his eyes. At the bookshop, he'd helped Anathema into the backseat and then stood there and stared at Crowley like the prospect of climbing into the back himself was utterly incomprehensible. He hadn't seemed to fully grasp this meant he'd been sitting next to Anthony until they'd already been on the road and Anthony had started up some music.[9]

"I don't see that we have a choice," Aziraphale said. "Crowley, dear, did this happen in your universe?"

"Pretty much."

"How did you get past it?"

"Oh, you know," Crowley said, eyeing the wall of flame that was currently the M25. "Quickly."

Anthony physically turned around to glare at him.

In front of them burned an impenetrable wall of flame. It hadn't been burning when they'd first gotten on the M25, but flared into existence when they'd neared their exit. Traffic had appropriately ground to a standstill. Actual radio had broken through the Bentley's stereo - apparently even it was curious about what was happening - and local authorities were baffled.

Same old, same old.

"We can't just sit here." Anathema was starting to look genuinely nervous. Also, hot. They were parked pretty close to the fire. She fanned herself with one hand and flipped through the book with the other, the giant tome balanced on her knees. "We have to get back to town soon or we're going to miss everything. I haven't even found the Antichrist yet."

Aziraphale choked. "You haven't?"

"Don't worry about it," Crowley said. "Adam Young, short, curly hair. Got a dog."

Anathema's eyes narrowed. "Adam?"

"The hellhound is a problem," Anthony said.

Aziraphale gave him a look identical to the one the real Aziraphale had given Crowley when he'd mentioned the hellhound in their universe. Privately Crowley thought that was unfair, since it wasn't as if Anthony and Aziraphale had any sort of Arrangement, let alone one about the Antichrist.

"Adam," Anathema said again. She closed the book and rested her elbow on the cover, so she could put her chin in the hand she wasn't using as a fan. "Are you sure? Maybe in your universe, but in ours, Adam is just… I mean… he's a normal little kid. Except for how he and none of his friends play video games. But it is a small town. He's nice! He'd said he'd get rid of nuclear power for me if he could."

The radio dutifully reported: _"And again, there's been no update on what happened to the missing nuclear reactor."_

Anathema said, "Oh."

Aziraphale raised both hands. "The matter of the Antichrist and his puppy aside, we still have to somehow get past…" He gestured at the fire. "...this. I don't even understand what this is."

Anthony let out a low noise mostly eaten up by the Bentley's engine.

"Dread sigil Odegra," Crowley said, helpfully.

"Oh I know that," Aziraphale said. He either didn't notice or chose to ignore the high-pitched whine Anthony had to bite his lip to stop making. "Everybody knows that, they published the birds' eye view in the paper when it was finished. I thought Gabriel would reprimand me for allowing it. Never heard from him."

Anthony slunk down in the driver's seat. "You knew that was me?"

"It had your signature all over it." Aziraphale frowned. His head tilted to one side. "Was I not supposed to notice? I did think it was odd that I couldn't locate you, afterward. I thought for sure you would want to gloat."

Anthony looked back out the windshield. "Crowley, how in Hell did you really make it out of this?"

"Anthony," Aziraphale said, his voice edging into annoyance, as Anthony's hands shifted on the steering wheel. None of that could go anywhere good.

Crowley opened his mouth.

Hastur appeared in the middle of the front seat.

Everybody screamed. Even the stereo was startled into switching songs.

"What in Satan's name are you doing, Crawly?" Hastur demanded, when he was finished screaming near high enough to crack glass. He yanked the sunglasses off Anthony's face, and Crowley could feel the same thing happening to himself all over again.

Anthony's eyes were yellow from edge to edge. He hissed and flattened himself against the doorframe.

Hastur said, "You weren't in your lair, and the ambassador's child is _not_ our Master's. What have you-" He stopped and stared at Crowley. "Who the bloody Heaven are you?"

The stereo sang, _Caviar and cigarettes, well versed in etiquette…_

Crowley gave Hastur a grim smile. The Duke was looking at him, but Crowley was looking at Aziraphale.

Crowley said, "I'm your second-worst nightmare, Hastur."

_Extraordinarily nice…_

Hastur's glossy black eyes widened. "What?"

_She's a killer queen…_

Aziraphale stabbed Hastur square in the chest.

Hastur screamed, Anathema gasped, and Anthony's jaw fell open as the Duke evaporated before their eyes.

_Gunpowder, gelatine, dynamite with a laser beam…_

Scowling, Aziraphale wiped his dagger off on a cleaning cloth he produced from whatever pocket of interdimensional space he apparently kept all these knives in. There wasn't any blood on it, but there was an odd oily sheen that came off on the cloth. Aziraphale frowned and brought the knife itself up to his face. "Oh, it's nicked."

Anthony swallowed. He mumbled, "Nicked." Or something close to it, anyway.

_Guaranteed to blow your mind…_

"That was rather ridiculous. Do powerful demons often just pop in on you while you're driving? That's not safe at all," Aziraphale said to Anthony. Before Anthony could answer, he frowned and picked up the sunglasses from where they'd dropped when Hastur disappeared. He handed them over to a very startled Anthony while half-turning to look at Crowley in the backseat. "Are we going to have to deal with this again?"

Anthony fumbled to take the sunglasses from Aziraphale's outstretched hand and get them back on his face.

"At this point," Crowley said, "I'd already, uh, dealt with Ligur. So… maybe?"

Aziraphale looked at his dagger. "Anathema, I think you had ought to keep your own blade to hand."

"Who is Ligur? Who was that?" Anathema asked. Her voice was high and cracked but Crowley didn't miss that she'd already reached into her bag to make sure her bread knife was on top of the rest of her things.

"Jussst tell us how to get off this road, Crowley," Anthony hissed. He'd latched onto the steering wheel with both hands.

Crowley told them.

"No," Anathema said. "No. Absolutely not." She put the bread knife down and pulled out the book. It made a definitive thud on her lap. "There has to be another answer in here. That won't work."

Anthony grimaced and rubbed a thumb along the steering wheel. "The car held together all the way to Tadfield?"

"Yes," said Crowley, because that was technically correct.

Also, this Adam could totally fix it.

Probably.

Aziraphale finished cleaning his dagger and put it away. Then he straightened his bow tie and looked out the windshield at the wall of fire. "It's a matter of physics."

"It's a matter of being burned alive," Anathema countered.

She flipped a page in the book so forcefully that she knocked her bag off the seat. The box of index cards tumbled out. Anathema groaned and Crowley leaned down to scoop them off the floor. Anathema bent over, her fingers catching one card by the corner.

Lifting the card up, she grimaced. "Oh no."

Crowley leaned over. Most of it didn't look like it applied to them, but there was a part in the middle that jumped out immediately. He read out loud, in what was not at all a good impression of Agnes's spelling: " _Four shall travel between London and Tadfield, escorted by royalty, in a fiery black chariot._ Sounds right."

"We aren't escorted by royalty. Unless there's something you're not telling us about your status in Hell, Crowley," Aziraphale said. He glanced sideways at Anthony. "I know _you_ aren't secretly a Prince."

Anthony lifted his hand in a rude gesture.

"It's the music, Aziraphale," Crowley explained. He leaned forward and tapped Anthony's shoulder. "This is the only way through. Between the two of us, we should be able to manage it."

"Should I remind all of you that I'm human?" Anathema asked.

"Please. Crowley, you may have had some trouble in your universe, but you didn't have my counterpart with you." Aziraphale gestured at the fire. "This is very impressive but it certainly isn't Hellfire. Even with the additional personages, I'm certain that with my assistance we should be able to replicate your crossing."

Anthony slammed his foot down on the gas.

All the parked traffic in front of them became a blur as they cut onto the side of the road. Aziraphale yelped and flattened his hand against the roof of the car.

"Brace yourselvesss," Anthony said.

Right before they hit the Anathema declared, "If I die, I'm complaining about all of you to whoever picks me up."

So it was a good thing that they made it through all right, because Crowley didn't want to break it to her that Death probably didn't care, and might not even have time for her right then.[10]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8. Although realistically, that was inevitable given the books to snake ratio.↩
> 
> 9. "Under Pressure."↩
> 
> 10. Death, for the record, always has time for everyone.↩


	6. Chapter 6

In another universe - a universe that did not suck, not that Aziraphale would have ever used that term - an angel paced the floor of his bookshop, wrung his hands, and fretted.

In the past thirty-odd hours, Aziraphale had gotten very good at fretting. Even better than usual. Real Olympic-grade fretting.

"Are you absolutely certain you haven't seen Crowley?" he asked. "Only it's that I've looked everywhere. Almost everywhere. I haven't gone back to Heaven or tried making my way into Hell, although I did pass by the entrance. Do you know they've gone and locked the door?"

He stopped mid-step to pick up and dust off a book. It was one of the ones Adam had given him. He'd marked it up at a ludicrous price to discourage anyone from even touching it.

"I must have the keys here somewhere, I remember Uriel giving them to me. Not that I really think either of them have him…" Aziraphale continued, his voice drifting off as he replaced the book on the shelf.

For a moment he recalled Crowley walking him over to this spot and showing him the new titles, the first time he'd returned to the bookshop on his own. For a moment he recalled Crowley's hand brushing his as Aziraphale had reached up to bring the first volume down. Crowley had ever so slowly withdrawn his hand and inched backward.

Still so careful.

At the time, Aziraphale had looked up at him and thought, _'I don't need to be handled like glass any longer, do I?'_

Now Aziraphale swallowed. Something in his chest constricted. He turned to face the figure he'd summoned for help.

WHEN I SAID I WAS NEVER FAR AWAY, Death said, sighing like the gentle slide of a cliffside city into the yawning ocean below, THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT.

"Please." Aziraphale clasped his hands together. "I've tried everything."

I HAVE NOT SEEN YOUR DEMON, PRINCIPALITY AZIRAPHALE.[11]

"Oh."

Aziraphale sat down. There was no chair in this part of the shop, but a chair was ready by the time he would have otherwise been on the floor. The furniture in Aziraphale's shop wasn't so much antique as it was semi-sentient. And it was fond of Aziraphale, even some of the chairs did think they could stand a polishing.

Death stared. He had dutifully appeared within the circle Aziraphale had drawn for the purpose. Aziraphale had put it in the spot where he'd previously kept his emergency line to Heaven.

In yet another universe, it would have been called the Rite of AshkEnte. It would have required several learned men in pointy hats. Aziraphale had foregone both the hat and the drippy candles (pointy hats not being his preference, and Crowley having long since forbid him from having open flame in the shop). All of that was more aesthetics than anything else, and Aziraphale was several learned men unto himself.

In this particular universe, the summoning was just called rude.

But the downturn of Aziraphale's mouth and the widening of his eyes was enough to move even the collapsed star that sat where Death might otherwise have had a heart.

I SUSPECT, Death said, slowly, THAT CROWLEY IS NO LONGER ON THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE.

Aziraphale's lips parted. He clutched a hand over his chest.

NOT LIKE THAT, Death said, just a tad sourly. I MEAN THAT IT'S NOT IMPOSSIBLE HE'S SIMPLY FALLEN INTO ANOTHER UNIVERSE.

"Do you really think so?"

DON'T QUOTE ME ON THAT.

"Oh, never," Aziraphale assured him. He swallowed and nodded several times. "Thank you."

MAY I GO NOW?

"Hmm? Oh! Of course." He put his foot down on the circle and moved it to create a break in the outer boundary.

Death vanished without another word.

It didn't matter. Even if he had stopped to say goodbye, Aziraphale was too busy to notice. The angel had already walked back to his office to start looking through his rolodex.

Aziraphale hadn't lied to Death, of course. He _had_ tried everything to find Crowley since the moment he'd realized Crowley had disappeared. Everything that one Principality could try on his own, that was.

  
  


As the Wrong Anathema (sorry, it just made Crowley's life easier to keep with the theme) guided the Bentley to Tadfield, Aziraphale (the right Aziraphale) was likewise making his way to town.

Since the right Aziraphale had not needed to shoo an Archangel out of his shop, he got an earlier start. At first he'd thought he'd might take the bus, but his walk to the station passed him by the Bentley, and… 

Something in Aziraphale's chest lurched. He pressed his other hand over his heart to try to keep it in place.

People passed by. The familiar sounds of a neighborhood waking up and starting its day - people on their way to work, stragglers making their way home, tourists stopping on corners and spinning in place to figure out which way their GPS thought they were facing. Aziraphale blinked water away from the corners of his eyes and absently flicked his wrist to keep a woman with a briefcase from walking straight into a teenager reading directions out to their family.

He moved his hands to straighten his bow tie and gently patted the Bentley's roof. "Don't worry," he said, under his breath. "We'll have Crowley back in no time."

The car door popped open.

Blinking, Aziraphale gently shut it. "I'm sure it won't take all that long," he said. He was not speaking to the car, of course. That would be ridiculous.

He turned away, and a metallic click behind him made him stop.

"Please."

Now he _was_ speaking to the car. Since there were still so many people on the street, he decided the rest of this conversation was better held inside. Which was also ridiculous. But he couldn't walk off and leave the door open. What if it rained, or an unscrupulous human walked past? Or a child with sticky fingers? Of course Crowley would have just miracled the door shut, or, presumably, locked it. But Aziraphale did not have keys to the Bentley. And performing a miracle on Crowley's car felt… wrong.

It felt like telling the car its owner wouldn't be returning.

Aziraphale sat in the passenger's seat.

"I don't know where Crowley is," he said aloud. Actually having a conversation with a car was still ridiculous, but he could sit here and say some things and leave. "I have done a lot of work to discover where he is not, and that is here. What I would like is that handy ability of his to sense supernatural activity, but we must make do with what we have."

Several people cut in front of the Bentley and the car in front of it to walk across the street. Aziraphale winced before remembering that they were parked on the side of the road, no danger of anyone being hit.

Right. Time to wrap this up, he needed to be on his way.

"What I need now is someone who can look at things differently." He leaned over and patted the steering wheel. "Once I speak to Anathema, I'm sure I'll have more to go on. She has spoken extensively about alternate realities in the past."

True, at the time Aziraphale had been unsuccessfully trying to catch Newt's eye and find a way out of that particular conversation, but now it was useful to know someone who had already done research into alternate universes. Perhaps she could recommend some foundational texts. And he was so distracted by wondering where he would find his own copies of such books that at first he didn't notice the car in front of him was no longer in front of him.

In fact, it was beside him. And a moment after that it was behind him.

"Oh! Oh, no, this isn't what I meant at all," Aziraphale gasped.

He twisted around to see the street blurring behind them as the Bentley continued driving forward at increasingly high speeds. Then it occurred to him that facing backwards as a car sped down crowded London streets was irresponsible, so he looked back out the windshield.

It did not help.

"This is not what I was saying. I was going to take the bus," he insisted, as the car merged onto a road leading out of the city. "I don't even know how to drive! Oh, no, those people we just passed looked awfully confused, didn't they?"

Reluctantly, he moved over into the driver's seat. It felt very wrong. He was sure he didn't fill it out as well as Crowley.

He touch the steering wheel and then thought better of it, drawing his hands back into his lap.

They hadn't hit anybody yet, anyway.

"At least Gabriel can't interrogate me about using miracles to drive. I tried to tell him what a bother it is to learn after that time I explained what buses were and he had such a terrible reaction, but…"

  
  


Anathema (the Wrong Anathema) watched the Bentley drive down the road. She absently laced her fingers through Newt's when he cupped their hands together. She'd instructed Anthony to drop her off at the back of the air base. Newt had figured that one out and called her mobile once they'd gotten over the M25. Then she'd told the others to keep driving and go through the front gate.

Aziraphale had tried to protest, but Anathema had the ultimate argument: Prophecy 3477. 

_"Lette the wheel of Fate turne, and the wheel of Royalte, too; Four Plus One will approach to Peas is Our Professioune. Five cannot drive through the holy wall, but Two may slip in through the edge."_

"Which means you drive in the front, and I'll find a way in through the side. Newt is obviously the plus one," Anathema had said.

Next to her, Crowley had made a mean little choking noise.

They'd come to a stop, and Aziraphale had gotten out so Anathema could get out too. The angel had frowned. "What does holy wall mean?"

"Chain link fence. Wall full of holes," Newt had said. And, "Hi. I'm Newt."

Aziraphale had looked at him for a long moment before saying, "Quite. See you in a moment, my dear," and getting back in the car.

So the car drove around toward the front, and Anathema squeezed Newt's hand.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"I found out we definitely fix everything, in another universe."

Newt blinked and then smiled, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. "Oh! That's good news." He sounded genuinely relieved. "And the soldiers definitely didn't shoot any of us, right?"

"No. No shooting."

Anathema decided not to tell him about the giant wall of fire. Or the Archangel, or the fact that the 'Serpent' was a giant sixty-foot demon snake, and that there were two of them. Actually she probably shouldn't mention the demon that got stabbed in front seat of the car either.

Maybe she would tell him about the bookshop. Later. When there was time.

She rocked up on her toes and kissed his cheek. "Come on. Let's go inside."

"How are we going to stop them, exactly? Only I've been reading the note cards you left me and Agnes did not mention how we're going to stop them."

Up ahead, a tree had fallen on the fence. The entrance was so perfect it could have been an illustration in a children's book. Anathema let go of Newt's hand and climbed over the scattered branches and leaves to pick her way through to the other side. It was noisy, but too quiet at the same time.

Newt didn't move. He stared up at the airbase at the top of the gently sloping hill. "Aren't you worried?"

"I worry all the time." Anathema shrugged. "But Agnes didn't write about me worrying, so it can't be the most important thing."

Newt took a deep breath and started climbing over the fence, too.

He immediately tripped and Anathema had to drop her bag to catch him. It would have spoiled the moment, but actually he was kind of cute with his glasses all crooked, and Anathema had long since learned to appreciate the small details. Those were the kinds of things Agnes never really mentioned.

It was important to notice those things. Agnes may have written the outline of Anathema's life, but it was up to her to fill in the blanks.

  
  


Anathema (the right Anathema) stood in the kitchen of Jasmine Cottage. She sipped coffee from a large white mug, and contemplated slippers.

Back home, her mother had given her a nice pair of red house slippers. She still had them. She looked down and wiggled her toes in them now. But they weren't winter slippers. It had been six months since Armageddon, and England was settling solidly into winter. The other morning she'd stepped into Newt's slippers by bleary pre-coffee accident. His had been much warmer. Unfortunately they were also the wrong size and she'd tripped the whole time she'd had them on.

Plus, Newt had gingerly asked for them back.

She looked at the calendar. Today would be a good day to go shopping in what could be said to constitute downtown Tadfield, but she'd already marked the day off for tuning up the theodolite. 

Oh well. Tomorrow, then. Today she could keep warm in thick socks.

It wasn't that she _had_ to follow the calendar, except for things out of her control, like the phases of the moon, or bank holidays. It was just that she found plans reassuring.

Today her plan was to clean up her theodolite. Newt kept encouraging her to be spontaneous. Of course, Newt's idea of spontaneity was asking for chocolate _and_ rainbow sprinkles at the Tadfield ice cream shop.

It was too cold for ice cream. Maybe after the theodolite was back in proper working order, she would run out and bring back some hot cocoa.

"Working on that old thing again, huh?" Newt asked as he ambled into the kitchen.

Anathema had idly allowed her aura vision to come on as she worked. Newt's aura was lemon yellow. This morning the usually curious and excitable tendrils were low with sleep.

"Uh-huh," she said.

The pieces of the theodolite were scattered over the kitchen table. The first step of any good tune-up involved cleaning everything, so that's what Anathema was in the middle of doing. It was an old model, passed down through the family. Anathema could take it apart and put it back together in her sleep.

Newt poured himself some coffee. He took a sip, made a face, and went to the refrigerator for the cream. "I still say Crowley is going to get you a new one for Christmas."

"Crowley doesn't do Christmas. Or gifts." Anathema carefully polished a sliver of metal. "Besides, he still thinks I don't know he put my name in as the knife emoji in his phone."

"Yes, but the last time we visited the bookshop you had that argument about…" Newt put the cream down and made big motions with his hands, curling them into fists and then spreading his fingers out. "Lasers."

Anathema looked up over her glasses. "You don't need lasers if you know how to properly work the equipment," she said. "Besides, they're useless for ley lines. And how was that supposed to be lasers?"

Newt opened his mouth to explain, but a knock at the door cut him off.

"I'll get it," he said.

As it turned out, it was not Crowley at the door. But after Anathema heard it swing open, she also heard Newt say, "Speak of the devil!"

That level of frosty silence _might_ have been due to the actual frost outside, but was much more likely Aziraphale's responsibility.

Anathema put down the part in her hand and went to meet them at the front door. When she rounded the corner, Newt was awkwardly fiddling with his glasses. Aziraphale stood just outside the doorway. He had one eyebrow raised and his hands folded in front of himself. As always, he had that slight touch of not-quite-human about him that made Anathema want to dial down her extra vision.

Of course, before she could turn that off, she did have an unfiltered moment of looking right at Aziraphale's aura.

"I didn't mean it like that," Newt floundered.

Aziraphale glanced to Anathema. His expression immediately melted. "Anathema, dear, hello."

Anathema did not smile back. She reached up and adjusted her glasses instead. "What happened?" she asked.

"Is it… that obvious?" Aziraphale asked, his smile falling. He allowed Newt to usher him inside, but he didn't move once he'd stepped away from the door. Except to wring his hands.

"Your aura," Anathema began, stopping at the flicker that passed over Aziraphale's eyes. She sighed. "You look sad."

Aziraphale's lower lip wobbled. Then he forced a nervous smile onto his face. "I suppose I am a bit sad," he admitted. He started following Anathema to the kitchen. His eyes reviewed the theodolite pieces scattered on the table. "But I was hoping you might be able to help me with that."

Anathema poured a small cup of coffee, using the last of the cream, and held it out to him.

Aziraphale held the coffee mug with both hands. "Do you know anything about alternate universes?"

"Oh!" Anathema sat down, forgetting all about the theodolite. "Lots! Well. As much as anybody can know about universes. All the best sources theorize about parallel universes, you see, but almost no one has actually been able to visit one before. Not anyone who's been allowed to talk about it, at least."

Newt was still by the front door, where two big windows looked out onto the street. Anathema couldn't see him from her spot at the table, but she could hear him call out, "Is that the Bentley? Where's Crowley?"

"I would… very much like to talk about parallel universes," Aziraphale said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11. See? Death does have time for everyone.↩


	7. Chapter 7

The Principality Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate - and certainly the correct Aziraphale for this particular universe - felt for the hidden weight of his dagger in his cloak and tried to breathe. He was more successful at the former than the latter.

Once upon a time Aziraphale had assumed that if he were ever to be in the front seat of the Bentley[12], it would be as part of a plan to dramatically crash it into the river. While safely transporting himself back to the shore at a critical moment, of course.

He had fantasized - He had _considered_ this plan quite frequently back in the early 1900s when Anthony had gotten it into his foul head to plant an illicit bus stop outside the bookshop. Two whole years of unregulated, illegal buses overcharging hapless riders. Sometimes they even delivered customers to the shop, which Aziraphale had otherwise taken such pains to keep off local maps and transit routes.

Now he was in the front seat of the Bentley under no duress.

Excepting the general duress of Armageddon, but in the big picture, when had they ever not been awaiting Armageddon? He was armed. He had honorably dispatched a notorious Duke of Hell with his favorite weapon, just in time to give Heaven a numbers advantage.

The absolute last thing Aziraphale wanted to do was report this success to Gabriel.

And the worst part was, he suspected he didn't have much of a choice. If Armageddon indeed kicked off in Tadfield, all of them would see Gabriel soon.

"How did this go, when you got here in your universe?" Anthony asked.

"Angel got here first, with some humans. Guess they're still at home. Or you don't know them." Crowley cleared his throat. "Bentley made it all the way here. Not the kind of performance you'd get from a modern car, mind you. A modern car never would've made it through the M25, not with just me."

Anthony snorted. "I was more asking about how you managed to defeat the Antichrist."

"It really wasn't my fault it exploded, there was just too much fire," Crowley continued, apparently not listening. Then he sat straight up and leaned in between the two seats. The line of his mouth went crooked. "I keep telling you," he complained, "it's not about defeating him. The kid's human - _Wants_ to be human, anyway. If we're lucky. We're here to back him up, not destroy him."

Aziraphale turned a little to look at him. Looking at Crowley wasn't suspicious at all. It wasn't as if Crowley had ever discorporated him. Or deliberately spread terrible reviews of Aziraphale's favorite and now-forgotten Shakespeare play. Or pretended to be a Countess seducing widowers into overspending their money, and then used that reputation to corner Aziraphale - who had, in retrospect, been very stupidly posing as a widower - into clumsily dancing with her in the middle of Almack's.

Aziraphale still couldn't waltz. It was a bit of a sore spot, if he was honest with himself.[13]

 _"Too much fire?"_ The question made Anthony's voice crack. "You said it'd be fine!"

"It is fine! The Bentley's not on fire at all!"

Interrupting would be faster than resolving the conversation. Aziraphale asked, "Back the Antichrist up against what, Crowley? The Horsepersons?"

Crowley made a face at Anthony and turned to look at him. It was hard to see his eyes past his glasses, but the set of his expression was grim. "No, Adam and his little gang took care of the Horsepersons."

"You can't mean we need to help Adam against our own people," Aziraphale said. His fingers twisted together in his lap. "The… the trumpets. And whatever Hell has planned for fanfare."

"Hell doesn't go in for fanfare," Anthony said.

"Adam will take care of it."

Given that Adam was an eleven-year-old and Aziraphale had once briefly met the one everyone had assumed was the Antichrist, he felt skeptical that a human child could face down Death and all the rest. The Dowlings' son had not been someone Aziraphale would press into service against War.

But Crowley's glasses weren't entirely opaque. It was hard to see his eyes, but it wasn't impossible. There was more white around them than there ever was around Anthony's, but they were just as serious.

Thus far, Aziraphale had avoided thinking about his counterpart in the other universe. But looking at Crowley now made it unavoidable. Here was a Serpent who called his nemesis _angel,_ with reverence. Here was a Serpent who knew things Aziraphale had never even told to God. Here was a Serpent whose sunglasses were not opaque. Who hid his eyes from humans, but clearly didn't feel the need to hide them from… from his Aziraphale.

The temptation to look at Anthony's opaque sunglasses and ask _Why?_ was so strong, Aziraphale had a sour taste on his tongue.

_Why? It's not as if I don't know what's behind them._

But maybe he didn't, not really.

The Bentley took a turn. In front of them stretched the drive up to the airbase gate. The place looked empty from here. The gate was even open. There was nothing blocking them from entering.

Crowley said, "There's one other… being… that's got a personal investment in all thisss."

It was the first time a hiss had manifested in Crowley's speech. The words made Aziraphale go cold through. The sourness vanished, replaced with a crackle of fear creeping up the back of his neck.

The steering wheel creaked under Anthony's grip. "You don't mean who I think you mean."

"Did you expect someone else?" Crowley asked. "Armageddon cancelled, the Antichrist backing down. Did you expect everyone to just shrug and go along with it?"

The sunlight filtering through the clouds had a warm, golden edge to it. A shimmer of heat warped the air above the concrete driveway leading to the front gate. The airbase was truly a manifestation of humanity in the midst of Her creation.

Aziraphale hadn't spoken with Her in six thousand years.

Oh, he'd talked to Her. He'd offered prayers and gratitude. But She hadn't been _listening._ No matter what the humans thought - Or maybe it was different for them, Aziraphale wouldn't know, he had never been past the humans' gates, in Heaven - She didn't listen to just anyone. Certainly not simple Principalities. The Metatron, yes. The Archangels, Aziraphale had to believe so.

But if She heard Aziraphale speaking to her, She gave as much response as he expected She had been giving to Anthony.

"Some blasted plan," Anthony snapped.

Aziraphale tried to pay attention. He had missed something, because Anthony had his teeth bared. Crowley had sunk down into the backseat and crossed his arms tight over his chest.

"It worked once. It can work again," Crowley said.

"If you'd told me we had to fight _Satan,_ " Anthony started.

"Satan?" Aziraphale blurted. "Is that all?"

Anthony slammed on the breaks. Aziraphale had to catch himself on the dashboard. The impact shot through his arms, and he winced. Crowley was thrown forward and ended up sprawled halfway into the front seat.

"Really!" Aziraphale turned to glare at Anthony. "There was no need for that. I know Satan must frighten you, dear boy," he complained, ignoring the crucially different choking noises both Anthony and Crowley made at that, "but if Crowley is correct then between all of us and the Antichrist it should be no trouble."

Anthony opened and shut his mouth and then scowled and pointed out at the driveway. "Your ridiculous confidence in us is not why I stopped the car!"

Turning, Aziraphale clamped his mouth shut.

He wanted to say 'oh,' but thousands of years of self-preservation kicked in before even the panic could.

On the tarmac stood not Satan, but Lord Beelzebub and the Archangel Gabriel.

There was no reason Crowley should smell smoke on his clothes.

This Bentley was not falling apart. It was not on fire. The wheels weren't threatening to come off and the engine was not begging to be released from its mortal coils. The interior of the car had heated up a bit as they'd passed over the boundary of the M25, but otherwise they'd come out fine. Crowley had even looked out to double-check. The paint had come away with a bit of a shine.

Wrong Aziraphale was fine. Hadn't come close to discorporation, unless you counted inflicting it on Hastur. Anthony was with him.

They both looked like they wanted the Bentley to turn around and zip out of Tadfield, but they were both fine.

Crowley still smelled smoke on his clothes.

In front of the car, Beelzebub had their arms crossed over their chest. Gabriel's hands were clasped behind his back. Both of them were dressed the way they had been on the day of Crowley's Armageddon, Beelzebub in their fly hat and Gabriel looking like he'd lost his way when someone turned the page of a department store catalog. Crowley guessed that the nonexistence of an Arrangement didn't affect the Prince of Hell or the most obnoxious of the Archangels.

"What are we going to do?" Aziraphale whispered.

"You were the one bragging about taking on _Satan._ He doesn't worry you, but Gabriel does?" Anthony whispered back.

"Please. You have never been on Gabriel's bad side."

"Being on Gabriel's bad side is my job description," Anthony said. "And anyway, he seemed happy enough to almost promote you out of Earth entirely. Right when the bookshop was still shiny and new."

"Before you ruined it!" Aziraphale said. He actually looked away from Gabriel and Beelzebub to glare at Anthony. His face had gotten pink all over. "Do you know, every time I report up, Gabriel asks me if I have you 'under control yet'?"

Anthony also looked away from Beelzebub and Gabriel to stare back at Aziraphale. "What… What do you tell him?" he asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, right, no," Crowley said. He batted at Anthony's arm and slithered into the front seat, leaning across his counterpart to open the driver's side door. Anthony sputtered and pushed back at him as Crowley climbed across his lap and out of the car entirely. Crowley said, "I'm not staying trapped in the car for _this_ conversation," and shut the door.

Gabriel cleared his throat. "What do you think you're doing, Serpent-"

"Idiot," Beelzebub said, out the corner of their mouth. Their eyes were darting back and forth over Crowley. "That's not him."

A fly buzzed over to circle Crowley's head. Crowley gleefully swatted it away, which made Beelzebub's jaw drop.

Gabriel looked like he was going to laugh at Beelzebub before he remembered he was supposed to be on their side (for the moment). He jerked his chin in Crowley's direction. "Sure looks like the Serpent to me."

"No," Beelzebub said. They raised their hand. Their fly wobbled back over to rest on their knuckles before crawling into the safety of their sleeve. "Crawly's in the car. I don't know who this izzz at all."

Crowley sucked a breath in through his teeth. So Anthony had never swanned through Hell declaring his new name.

All right then.

"Don't suppose Adam's already sent you away?" Crowley asked.

"He refuses to listen to reason," Gabriel grumbled. Then something in his expression snapped, his purple eyes flickering, like he'd just remembered he shouldn't be chatting with non-royalty demons. He looked down at Beelzebub. "Are you going to get him under control or let him continue to prance around?"

"Under control, again," Crowley muttered. "Guess it's better than stabbing me."

"Stabbing could be arranged," Beelzebub intoned, eyes narrow.

"Not necessary," Crowley said, hurriedly. He inched backward toward the Bentley and wished he hadn't left the tire iron in the bookshop. "Tell me, did the kids already beat the Horsepersons?"

"How did you know that?" Gabriel asked. He uncrossed his arms pointed at Crowley while putting his other hand on Beelzebub's shoulder. "How did he know that?"

"Stabbing could also be arranged for you," Beelzebub said.

Both doors to the Bentley opened. Anthony and Aziraphale got out. Anthony had a wrench in his hand. Not nearly as good as a tire iron, but at least it was something. He swung around behind Crowley and took one step forward, so he was just a couple of inches closer to Beelzebub than Crowley was.

Aziraphale swallowed and closed half the distance between him and the Archangel. "H-Hello, Gabriel."

"Oh, great," Gabriel said. "Aziraphale's here. Everything's fixed now."

A nervous smile yanked at the corner of Aziraphale's mouth. Once, twice, before it stretched all the way across his face. He swallowed. "Well," he said. "The - The thing of the matter is, I think I know a way that it might be."

Beelzebub started rubbing their temples. Gabriel groaned. He did not acknowledge the way Aziraphale's smile wobbled. Or how Aziraphale cringed as Gabriel walked forward. When they met, Gabriel grabbed Aziraphale's elbow and yanked him across the tarmac out of earshot of Beelzebub and the rest of them. He held up one finger and started what was surely a lecture for the history books.

Crowley tried not to grind his teeth.

A muscle in Anthony's jaw twitched. Even his dark glasses couldn't hide the gleam in his eyes. "You didn't find a way to off Gabriel like you did away with Ligur, did you?"

"No. What do you care?"

Anthony said nothing.

"No, really," Crowley said. "Why do you care about Aziraphale having a terrible boss?"

"You call yours _angel._ And it's not an insult."

"Yeah, but mine doesn't try to stab me."

Anthony tilted his head. "You have to admit," he said, in a rough voice, "the knife thing is a little hot."

"We are two very different demons," Crowley said, and then immediately contradicted himself. "Come on. If you can't be honest with yourself, who can you be?"

There was a long moment of silence. Beelzebub hummed a mantra under their breath that Crowley recognized from Dagon's 'Officially Put an End to Beelzebub Using Lightning Indoors' campaign, in which the Lord of the Files had done her best to, well, get Beelzebub to stop discorporating them all with lightning indoors. Apparently in this universe it had worked better than in Crowley's.

Anthony surrendered. The fight went out of his wary expression, and his shoulders sagged. "He's the only one who's stayed. Everybody else. They go back to Hell, or Heaven."

His voice was so low Crowley had to strain to hear it. He was watching Aziraphale unsuccessfully attempt to interrupt Gabriel.

Crowley began a mantra of his own, in the back of my mind. _This isn't my universe. This isn't my Aziraphale. This is Anthony's universe. This is Anthony's…_

"You know how humans are. Mayflies. Having - Having somebody who knows you, even when you accidentally sleep through a century and everyone else you knew is dead, it…" Anthony wet his lips and swallowed. "I don't actually think he meant to discorporate me, the first time. We were both really drunk. S'probably an accident." He paused and lifted the wrench. "Do not tell him I said that. Or the thing about the knives, either."

"I don't make promises." Crowley's head spun. He looked Anthony up and down. "You didn't tell him your name, though."

Anthony made a little growling noise.

Crowley recognized that noise. It was a _I'm a demon, I'm not nice_ kind of noise.

Which was fortunate. Crowley did not consider himself lucky - in his experience, luck was made, not given - but he was willing to bet a day's worth of miracles that some things were universal constants.

He leaned over and said in a low voice, "Your Gabriel is a lot like mine. In my universe, Hell and Heaven tried to get rid of us, after. Gabriel tied Aziraphale to a chair and had Hell deliver a font of Hellfire."

Anthony let out a breath.

"Then he freed Aziraphale and told him to walk into the fire. Do you know what Gabriel told him?"

Anthony didn't move. Across the way, Aziraphale had locked his hands behind his back and Gabriel made a shut-up gesture at him.

Saying this was a low move. It was also the only move Crowley saw left. And ultimately he was a demon. He wasn't nice, even to himself. "He said, 'Shut your stupid mouth and die already.'"

Pressing forward so that Aziraphale fell back, Gabriel shouted, "Or maybe you've forgotten _your_ duties."

Aziraphale's face was colorless. He'd brought his hands up between himself and Gabriel, palms out.

Anthony burst forward. Sunlight caught the wrench in his hand.

Crowley looked for an exit route.

"Given Her infinite wisdom and, er, general infinity, I do believe-"

"Stop. Just stop," Gabriel said.

Aziraphale put his hands behind his back. He couldn't get to any of his knives with his hands behind his back, but if they were out of sight, Gabriel might hold onto what remained of his patience a little longer.

His other self had managed to do this. It shouldn't be so difficult.

"But the plan," he said, again.

"We are not wrong about Armageddon. It's been planned since the Fall."

"Not quite since the Fall," Aziraphale corrected him. A scowl flashed over Gabriel's face and Aziraphale stammered. "And - And are we, are we sure? I mean, are we absolutely sure, because-"

"I haven't prepared millions of soldiers to call them all off at the last minute."

"We could, though. There's still time. The last minute isn't actually gone." Aziraphale knew his voice was getting higher, his speech faster. He wished he had asked Crowley to repeat verbatim what he and Aziraphale's alternate had said in the other universe. He wished they had met Gabriel and Beelzebub on the air strip with the Antichrist, not outside the fence and all alone.

What he did remember from Crowley's story was that the other Aziraphale hadn't been alone.

Of course, the other Aziraphale had never really been alone.

"What is the point of dismissing the armies? If not now, when?" Gabriel asked.

"Never!" Aziraphale lifted his chin. Struggled to refocus. "That's precisely what I've been trying to say. There needn't be a war at all. We can save the Earth."

"There is nothing here worth saving!" Gabriel paused. Violet eyes flicked over Aziraphale. "Why aren't you in uniform?"

"What? Oh. I, um, that is-"

Gabriel held a hand up to shush him. His eyes narrowed, and his forehead wrinkled. "Uriel told me you were getting rid of _that,_ " he said, pointing back at Anthony and Crowley, which was unnecessarily mean-spirited in Aziraphale's opinion, "and then reporting to lead your regiment. Instead, you show up twenty minutes late, out of uniform, with _two_ demons. We all know you've never exactly been able to get the best of the Serpent, but this is Armageddon. I think I deserve an explanation here, Aziraphale."

It had been a long time since Gabriel or any of the other Archangels had demanded Aziraphale explain things. His standard mode of operation was to offer whatever explanations he could before it could get that far, because when he was put on the spot, all his clever reasonings tended to collapse.

Like now.

What came out of Aziraphale's mouth was, "I believe you yourself arrived with a demon. Sir."

Beelzebub had been busy picking at their nails. They couldn't have heard what Aziraphale said, but they did look up with a sneer on their face.

"Just what are you accusing me of? Have you forgotten who I am?" Gabriel asked, taking half a step forward. Oh. Oh no. Aziraphale shuffled back, but it didn't help, and Gabriel grew more annoyed at Aziraphale's protestations that of course he hadn't forgotten, until his expression turned sharp and icy, and the sunlight around them grew too bright. "Or maybe you've forgotten _your_ duties."

"Oi, wanker!" a voice called. "Don't talk to him like that!"

Aziraphale's chest tightened for two reasons.

First, nobody called the Archangel Gabriel a - a that thing.

Second, he knew without looking that the voice had belonged to Anthony, not Crowley. And he didn't know how he knew that.[14]

He braced himself and turned around.

Anthony had a wrench clutched in one hand. He walked the same way he had struck at the shop that morning, except now he was six feet of stalking demon and not sixty feet of slithering serpent.

By reflex, Aziraphale found his dagger in his hand. Now wasn't that silly?

Gabriel's laughter crackled in the air. It wasn't like Uriel's burning ozone, but it did sting the back of Aziraphale's throat.

Anthony's scowl deepened. Crowley must have been somewhere behind him. He must have. Aziraphale couldn't look away from Anthony's face, though, or the way his shadow grew darker on the pavement with every step he took toward them.

"You wanted to be here instead of reporting for duty," Gabriel said, clapping Aziraphale jovially on the shoulder. "That's hardly a sword, but we'll go with it."

"Go with…?"

"Start the War, Aziraphale." Gabriel pointed at Anthony again. "Kill the Serpent."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12. He assumed that if he were ever in any other part of the vehicle, it would be because he'd slipped up and gotten himself captured. Again.↩
> 
> 13. The Almack incident was Anthony's revenge for Aziraphale successfully evading a similar dance invitation centuries earlier. Both of them had a lot of reasons to be sore about Camelot.↩
> 
> 14. Aziraphale absolutely did know how he knew it was Anthony's voice, but allow him the self-deception. This was a very stressful moment.↩


	8. Chapter 8

Aziraphale's ears rang. It was a high, far-away, tinny sort of noise.

"I … beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." The expression on Gabriel's face normally would have sent Aziraphale scurrying for cover, or at least to agree with whatever the Archangel was asking.

In Aziraphale's hand, his dagger felt heavy.

He looked at Anthony, who had ground to a halt a few feet away. Out of Aziraphale's immediate range but close enough to react and duck under whatever attack Aziraphale tried to launch. It was familiar enough to nearly be comforting. Engaging in open combat with Anthony was rare, increasingly so the longer both of them spent on Earth, but one still had to go through the motions.[15]

There'd been a reason for every fight they had. Aziraphale couldn't remember them all any longer, but he knew that. There had always been a reason. It had always been to first blood or discorporation. Which, while inconvenient, wasn't permanent.

"But…" Aziraphale found himself smiling as he turned back to Gabriel. It was a shield of a smile. "I - I couldn't possibly. Not with this."

Gabriel snapped his fingers. The dagger flared with purple-tinged flame and Gabriel folded his hands together. "Now you can."

It wasn't Her fire but striking Anthony with it would hurt him irrevocably. Aziraphale had to adjust his grip to keep his fingers away from the heat. He had never used anything like this on a demon. He'd been given his flaming sword only after being assigned to Eden, and that he'd only had for days before handing it over to Adam. The first Adam. The sword had never been a threat to Anthony. This dagger would be.

Anthony was watching him.

Anthony was watching Aziraphale's face, not the dagger in his hand.

Aziraphale felt a sudden grip of shame. Like fingers at his throat.

"This is a simple task," Gabriel told him. "What did you think the War was going to be?"

"Averted," Aziraphale said, without thinking about it.

It made Anthony snort and Gabriel scowl. Aziraphale nearly moved to put his dagger away but stopped at the last moment. His coat wasn't flameproof.

He said, "Perhaps you could hear us out, before taking such drastic measures."

"Who's 'us'?" Gabriel demanded.

"What?"

Gabriel shook his head. "You can't mean you and him. He's a demon, Aziraphale. The enemy."

"Yes, but we've both been here since the Beginning. If you just listen to us, I think you'll find that Earth is worth preserving," Aziraphale said. He turned on his heel and let his dagger fall to his side, the most he could do without extinguishing it completely. "Tell him."

Anthony briefly pressed his lips together. "Zira…"

 _He's afraid of Gabriel,_ Anthony had told Crowley, in the bookshop. _Your Aziraphale might have a spine, but mine?_

At the time, Aziraphale had been so focused on putting on a show with polishing the dagger that he hadn't been able to think about it until later. Well after Anathema had arrived and everyone else had settled down to sleep. Far too late to ask Anthony, _What do you mean, 'mine'?_

"You don't want to disobey an order, Aziraphale," Gabriel promised.

Aziraphale didn't.

But he didn't want to obey, either.

This was _Anthony._

Aziraphale couldn't - This wasn't what they did! This had never been the point of any of it! He opened his mouth but couldn't speak. He saw the moment Gabriel identified the hesitation. It was the same moment it registered on Anthony's face, too.

Shame clawed at Aziraphale's throat.

"Is thizzz the move you're making?" As Beelzebub crossed the space to hover at Anthony's right, their shoes left scorch marks behind on the pavement.

Unmoved, Gabriel gave them a cool look. "We're here to start the War, Beelzebub."

"The child is here to start the War."

Gabriel cast his eyes up and stalked over to Beelzebub. He leaned down and whispered, in a voice that could have carried for miles, "Do you have a better idea?"

Beelzebub stared at him. Then they snapped their fingers at Anthony. In command, not miracle. "Kill the angel."

Instead of answering, Anthony lifted his wrench and held a hand under it, palm up. _With this?_

"I believe in your imagination," Beelzebub said. The sentence somehow buzzed. They did not bother to tell Anthony to shape up, or try to guilt him, or otherwise convince him to behave on his own. "Do as you're told, Crawly."

Aziraphale's mouth was still open. He blurted, "Oh, but surely you know his name isn't Crawly."

Anthony dropped the wrench. His fingers loosened in shock and it just clattered to the ground. It hit his boot, but he didn't seem to notice. His lips had also parted and his sunglasses slid a sliver of an inch down the bridge of his nose. Enough that Aziraphale caught a glimpse of yellow eyes ringed with a thin edge of white.

An unflattering rush of satisfaction swept through Aziraphale. It wasn't as if Anthony had taken his glasses off. But still. It was nice to see his eyes.

"What?" Beelzebub and Gabriel asked, half a second off from each other.

Aziraphale brought his dagger up to his face and blew on it. Gabriel's purple flame vanished. The dagger was still hot, so Aziraphale had to shake it before slipping it back into his coat.

"You both mean well - or not well, as the case may be," he said, and his voice hardly shook at all, wonderful, "but Anthony and I have been on Earth the longest of anyone, and I think it's clear that we know things that have escaped your notice."

Beelzebub's face crinkled. "Anthony?"

"What I was trying to explain to Gabriel is that, er," Aziraphale said. 

Shame no longer clutched at his throat, but Gabriel was also leveling a look at him that suggested he wanted to replace it with actual fingers. Aziraphale swallowed and turned to Anthony, and his voice grew a touch pleading, if he were to be brutally honest with himself. He surely didn't deserve to plead with Anthony, of all people, but it was also Anthony, of all people, who might know how to talk circles around an Archangel and Prince of Hell.

"Armageddon won't… work," Aziraphale fumbled, eyes on Anthony's face. He could see his reflection in Anthony's sunglasses. It held no hints about how to proceed. He said, "On account of the humans. Of course."

Gabriel moved forward, and Aziraphale took several hurried steps back. He felt a bump at his elbow and glanced over to see that Anthony had set his feet firmly on the pavement at Aziraphale's side. Aziraphale could hardly recall the last time they'd deliberately stood next to each other. Inexplicably, Aziraphale found himself standing up straighter.

Gabriel said, "What do humans have to do with Armageddon? There aren't any humans here!"

"There are," Aziraphale insisted, thinking of Anathema and her plus-one.

"Yeah, the kid's human," Anthony said.

"Yes? Oh, yes," Aziraphale said. "Yes, the Antichrist is quite human."

Crowley had said the boy _wanted_ to be human, anyway. That was near enough to the same. Had to be.

Gabriel said, "The Antichrist. Is not. Human."

"Nnnno." Anthony shook his head. "Very human. I'd know. I delivered him. Er, not _delivered_ delivered. Handed over."

"You did?" Aziraphale asked, surprised. "I didn't know that."

"'Course. Who else?"

"Are you good with children?" Aziraphale struggled to picture Anthony bouncing a baby in his arms, cooing and telling it that everything would be fine, yes, Earth was much colder than Hell but he would get used to it.

Anthony's face was pink for some reason. "Mmmph."

"Stop it!" Gabriel snapped. They both looked at him, and he gestured between himself and Beelzebub. "We are here to settle this, once and for all. Humanity isn't part of it."

Apologetically, Aziraphale said, "It is, though."

"Adam doesn't want to start Armageddon, I mean…" Anthony shrugged. His whole body moved with it. "If it says the Antichrist starts it, and he doesn't, can't make him."

"No, no, no, you couldn't make him. Then you would've started Armageddon. And there is certainly nothing about an Archangel or the Prince of Hell kicking off the end of the world. Imagine how, ah." Aziraphale glanced significantly up and then significantly down. "Imagine how going off script would be received."

Neither the Archangel nor the Prince of Hell moved. They seemed to be considering. Significantly up, and significantly down.

Aziraphale looked into the air base but saw nothing. Still, 'nothing' encompassed 'fire' and 'brimstone' and 'the end of the world,' so he was willing to take it as a positive sign. He did want to end this conversation and get over to the children to see what was happening, though. Crowley had been insistent that they had to be there, and… Oh, Crowley. Included in the 'nothing' insofar as Aziraphale saw the demon nowhere.

He needed to end this discussion now. Before Gabriel or Beelzebub could out-think them.

"It stands to reason," he said. "It's down to Adam's choice. Just as with the first Adam. You remember, Anthony."

Both Anthony's eyebrows went up. "Vaguely."

"No, he's the reason the first Adam made the wrong choice," Gabriel said.

"S'really Eve's choice, first. Then Adam's. I barely talked to him," Anthony corrected him. "And all I did was point it out."

"Just like _you_ pointed out the possibility of Armageddon to this Adam," Aziraphale told Gabriel.

While that thought exploded in Gabriel's brain, the Archangel looked back and forth as if he would find someone to speak with who was not Aziraphale. The only other people were Anthony, who was beneath Gabriel's notice, and Beelzebub, who was busy humming some odd kind of chant underneath their breath.

Aziraphale decided they needed to take the opportunity they'd made, and escape.

"Now, if you'll just excuse us. We're running late," he said.

Then he latched onto Anthony's shoulder and marched the both of them into the air base.

The gate was open. There was no one there to stop them. There didn't seem to be anyone inside at all. Aziraphale walked forward and hoped spotting the Antichrist would be easy.

Anthony waited until they were safely away from the baffled Archangel and demonic prince to look at Aziraphale. His face was still pink, for some reason. "What the Heaven are you doing?" he whispered. He sounded annoyed, but he also made no effort to slow Aziraphale down or wrest himself free of Aziraphale's hold. He must know there was no better option.

"Crowley said we had to be there, and that conversation was taking far too long."

"Oh, Crowley said," Anthony muttered. His heels dug into the pavement a bit.

Aziraphale pushed him forward. "Yes, and where is Crowley?"

Anthony frowned. "Well, he…" He stopped. Fully. Aziraphale nearly fell over from the sudden force of it. "Ah. Fuck me."

"Do you think he went back to the other universe? Only I was hoping he'd stay, in case we needed last-minute tips."

Anthony pointed wordlessly to the left.

Crowley was walking toward them. Behind, Anathema waved. She stood with Newt and a group of colorfully dressed children, who also waved, apparently for the simple joy of waving. One of them held a flaming sword. Aziraphale decided not to examine it too closely.

"What took you so blasted long?" Crowley demanded.

"We were busy averting Armageddon," Aziraphale protested.

"No, Anathema and Newt and the kids were busy averting Armageddon." Crowley gestured back at them.

Anthony said, "We were busy getting Gabriel and Beelzebub to shut up."

"Oh," Crowley said. Then he paused and nodded his head forward. His sunglasses slid down, and he could more effectively make eyes at Aziraphale's hand still on Anthony's shoulder. The corner of Crowley's mouth turned up.

He managed to make the second "Oh" sound lascivious.

Aziraphale glared at him. Crowley snickered.

Anthony glared at him. Crowley laughed.

"Honestly. We had to make a quick exit. That's all." Aziraphale shook his head.

He let go of Anthony's shoulder, but Crowley was absolutely certain that he saw Aziraphale's hand squeeze, first. He saw Aziraphale's fingers move and Anthony's face go red.

"Yes, yes, I'm a terrible demon, accusing you two of getting along," Crowley said, letting his tongue do something funny on the last two words.

Anthony made a throat-cutting motion.

Crowley laughed again. It felt good to laugh.

"It's hardly funny," Aziraphale said. Distress crept into his eyes. "Gabriel ordered me to kill him!"

Crowley stopped laughing. "What?"

"He put flame on my dagger and told me to start the War," Aziraphale said. Distress had crept into his voice now, too, at a level slightly above 'I had to pretend the cash register was jammed to force this customer to leave.' He met Crowley's eyes, flushed, and shook his head. "Obviously I didn't do it!"

"Obviously," Crowley said. He snuck a glance at Anthony.

Anthony turned up the corner of his mouth. He leaned over, close but not quite bumping Aziraphale's shoulder with his. "It's not like you would've won that fight anyway."

The distress in Aziraphale's pale eyes was swept aside by offense. "Might I remind you that your only weapon was a wrench."

"Ah, I discorporated you last." The sunglasses made it a little hard to tell, but Crowley was pretty sure Anthony winked at him.

"You did not, you let that awful French executioner do it," Aziraphale grumbled. At Crowley's shudder, he frowned. "Don't tell me the same thing happened to your Aziraphale."

"No," Crowley said. "I broke him out."

An awkward moment passed.

Crowley pictured his Aziraphale in France, taking 'just one bite' of crepe off Crowley's plate.

"Right. Well. I suppose it's time to get you back to your own universe," Wrong Aziraphale said. He clapped his hands together and tried to smile. "I admit I haven't had much time to speculate on the _how,_ but between all of us we should be able to come up with something."

"Why are there two of you?" a voice asked, from closer to the ground.

They looked down. Both Anthony and Crowley jumped back a bit, even though Crowley knew Adam wasn't about to go swinging the flaming sword around.[16] Adam blinked at them and rested the sword on his shoulder. It didn't burn his clothing. Behind him, the rest of the kids ambled up.

"One of them's from a different universe," Anathema said, joining them. She was holding Newt's hand.

"Oh," Newt said. "I figured they were twins."

Adam blinked. His face lit up. "Oh! We read about universes in the New Aquarium magazines."

"It's just a theory," Wensleydale said, while Brian nodded along. "It's not proven."

"Sure it's proven." Pepper pointed at Anthony. "Look at them."

"I'm the one who's from here," Anthony said.

"That doesn't disprove it," Pepper reasoned.

Anthony wrinkled his nose. He looked at Crowley. "Is that it, then? We missed the end of the world?"

"Specifically, not the end of the world," Anathema said.

One thing Crowley did not miss was being in the middle of giant group conversations. It was one thing to tolerate Anathema's occasional visits to London, but being in the middle of all the kids was another. And these kids didn't even know that he and Anthony could turn into a giant snake, burrow through the dirt, or drop down from high trees without getting hurt.[17]

A brief tremor shook the ground. A crack of lightning split the air outside the base.

Anathema asked, "What was that?"

The next lightning strike deposited Gabriel an inch in front of Aziraphale's face. The pavement went molten a step behind Anthony and made him wobble before Beelzebub rose up.

Beelzebub caught the back of Anthony's jacket and spun him around. Crowley flinched reflexively.

"I have to go sell humanity'zz _free will_ as the reason Armageddon isn't going off, Crawly," Beelzebub snapped.

"Heaven won't be any more excited about that than we were the first time. There will be consequences," Gabriel warned, looming over Aziraphale.

Aziraphale swallowed. Then he glanced sideways and told Beelzebub, apparently in reminder, "It's Anthony, you must recall."

That was interesting.

Beelzebub's lip curled. They shoved Anthony, so he stumbled and fell into Aziraphale's side. Aziraphale caught him. Anthony used the opportunity to tug Aziraphale back a couple of inches while pretending to be caught.

Beelzebub said, "This isn't over, don't you think otherwise."

Both of them vanished before anyone could respond.

"Good riddance," Pepper declared.

Adam nodded. "They were rude."

Anthony looked at Adam. "Where did you get that sword?"

 _"Anthony,"_ Aziraphale said, with menace.

"The person who was using it isn't using it any more," Adam said.

"That's ominous," Anthony said.

Adam beamed. "Thanks! What's 'ominous'?"

Halfway down the drive into the airbase, something split the fabric of the universe.

Anthony pointed. "That."

The break was less than an inch wide and orange.

Then it was several inches wide and yellow.

Then it was a foot wide and gold. For a moment it seemed to stop growing. It was taller than Crowley and pulsed when the wind picked up. And the wind did pick up. A barely-noticeable breeze at first, but built into gusts that shook the flags and made Anathema and Pepper's hair whip around.

The air all rushed toward the hole in reality.

Crowley's heart coiled underneath his ribs. He had to shove against the outlines of his body to keep it person-shaped instead of serpentine.

"No. That's not ominous." Anathema put her bag on the ground and pulled out Agnes's book. She knelt so she could flip through the pages. Newt crouched at her side. He tucked some hair behind her ear when it whipped across her face. She said, "That's Prophecy 5005."

"There is no Prophecy 5005," Crowley said.

There hadn't been. There also hadn't been a visible sign of the universe crumbling to pieces in front of him. He flexed his hands to prove to himself they hadn't gone scaly. He did feel a distinct, defensive sharpening of his teeth in his mouth. He tried to keep the anxiety away, but the split warped for half a breath and abruptly widened another several inches. The air grew hot. Fangs pressed against the inside of Crowley's lips.

Everything up until now had been following a script. Or shoving things into following a script.

This… was something else.

The dark gold color grew pale. Swirls of orange bubbled up at the edges of the portal before fading back into the background.

"Your universe may not have had this prophecy, but your universe didn't have you. I mean, it didn't have an extra you," Anathema said. She had reached the end of the book. She looked up and smiled at him even though the glow of the portal reflected in the clear lenses of her glasses, and gave her eyes a red sheen. "Prophecy 5005: _At the ende, a red-gold Eye will open. As for the Seconde Head of the Serpent, ye do not belong here. Turnne around._ "

Crowley turned around, but that just put the yawning pit of unreality at his back.

The wind hit him in the gut. He could run, but there wasn't anything to run to. A snake could burrow into the earth, but the only thing beneath his feet was concrete. And the only things in front of him were the airbase, and Tadfield, and the M25, and London. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Person-shaped, there was no way to get out of there there but a Bentley that wasn't his, anyway.

Anthony came up next to him. His elbow knocked into Crowley's. "Hey," he said. "You did this once, right?"

"I didn't do anything like this!"

Aziraphale stepped up to his other elbow. "You didn't do anything exactly like the last forty-eight hours, as I understand it."

Crowley looked back and forth between them. Anthony raised an eyebrow. If it weren't for Anthony's overly stereotypical outfit[18], it would've been like looking in a mirror. But mirrors had never been reassuring for Crowley, so he looked at Aziraphale.

"Come now, Crowley. You've helped stop Armageddon twice," Aziraphale said, smiling. "Surely whatever this is, we can face it together."

The smile would have been reassuring if it had been his own Aziraphale. Instead it just made it hard to breathe. Heat filled his throat. The portal whipped the wind around.

It felt like the words were pulled out of his lungs when Crowley opened his mouth to say, "It's supposed to be over."

There was a sick, sour taste on his tongue. He'd already done this. Twice. Shouldn't that be enough?

Aziraphale hesitated, glanced at Anthony, then looked back at Crowley. Something bright settled into his eyes. His smile grew broader, easier. "You aren't alone, Crowley."

"Make your own luck, yeah?" Anthony asked, with a grin.

Crowley let out a breath. The portal pulled that away too.

He wanted to clasp his own Aziraphale's hand in his so badly he could feel the press of Aziraphale's ring against his skin.

"All right," he said. He swallowed against the wind. Squared his shoulders, as far as his shoulders would allow themselves to be squared. "So now what?"

They all looked at each other.

It had gotten so hot. A drop of sweat slid along the back of Crowley's neck.

"Sorry to interrupt," Anathema interrupted. "But timing with prophecies is a difficult thing. I'm pretty sure you need to turn around _now,_ Crowley."

Only his back was to the portal. Everyone else faced it. Anathema was smiling. Newt and the kids looked puzzled. Crowley caught Anthony's eyebrows going up, and a startled widening of Wrong Aziraphale's eyes.

The anxious coil of Crowley's pulse burst to thud through his ribs, and he whirled around.

The rift in the universe was several feet wide now. No longer pale gold, but bright and clear, looking out onto a sunny winter afternoon on an identical and completely different airbase. Two people peered out at them. One was Anathema in a smart red coat, chalk in one hand and a rolled-up piece of paper in the other. Behind her stood that old, creaky, non-laser theodolite she insisted on using.

Next to her, Aziraphale - absolutely, definitely, incredibly the Right Aziraphale - beamed. 

_"Crowley,"_ he said. His eyes were wet. "There you are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 15. Like small talk for humans.↩
> 
> 16. A stick sword, yes. A flaming sword, no. All of the Them knew the difference between make believe and real weapons.↩
> 
> 17. Crowley may or may not have once lost a bet with Pepper.↩
> 
> 18. Crowley only went in for tasteful levels of stereotypically demonic in his clothing choices.↩


	9. Chapter 9

Crowley staggered forward in the same instant that Aziraphale surged out of the portal. They met in the middle, Crowley just having the presence of mind to dig his heels into the pavement so the force of Aziraphale slamming into him wouldn't knock them both over. Aziraphale's arms snapped around his middle, squeezing so hard it made Crowley's ribs creak. Crowley wrapped an arm around Aziraphale's shoulder and cupped his other hand against the back of Aziraphale's head.

Since it was winter on the other side of the portal, Aziraphale was slightly chill to the touch. He buried his face in the crook of Crowley's neck. 

"Angel," Crowley breathed into Aziraphale's hair. "You have no idea how much I've missed you."

"I think I have some idea," Aziraphale mumbled. He took a shuddering breath and lifted his head, blinking away relieved, unshed tears.

Crowley used the hand on the back of Aziraphale's head to pull Aziraphale in for a kiss. It earned him another rib-crushing squeeze - which one of them was supposed to be the snake? - but that was as bolstering as the feeling of Aziraphale's mouth on his.

All said and done the whole exchange only lasted a moment. But when Crowley turned around, Wrong Aziraphale and Anthony were staring at the sky and the ground, respectively. They had also scooted apart to place several inches between themselves. Behind them the kids had started giggling. Crowley managed to catch Wrong Aziraphale's eye. He felt bad enough for Anthony that he decided to wink over the top of his sunglasses. Wrong Aziraphale's eyes got huge, and he did that double-take thing at Anthony that Aziraphale always thought Crowley didn't notice him doing.

Crowley laughed. It felt good to laugh.

He looped an arm around Aziraphale's waist. "There a time limit on this portal, angel?"

"Anathema and I did the math. Slightly less than ten minutes," Aziraphale said.

Wrong Anathema's face lit up. She hopped to her feet, latched onto Newt's hand, and dragged him up to the rift to speak to her other self.

Aziraphale gave Anthony and Wrong Aziraphale a once-over before glancing up at Crowley. "I see you've been having an interesting time, dearest."

"Dearest," Anthony echoed, eyebrows up.

Because he could and because it made Wrong Aziraphale get all fidgety, Crowley kissed his own Aziraphale's temple. "I'll tell you all about it when we're back home. Say hi to Anthony and Wrong You."

"Anthony!" Aziraphale said. The delight in his voice made Anthony's ears go bright red. Aziraphale just smiled, a small, pleased smile, while Crowley leaned slinkily against his side. Aziraphale said, "It's nice to know that some things are a constant. And I am not calling any version of myself the 'wrong' one, Crowley. Hello."

"Pleased to meet you," Wrong Aziraphale said.

Crowley said, "We stopped Armageddon."

Aziraphale frowned. "Oh, but we already did that."

"That is what I said," Crowley said. "I said, 'Isn't saving one universe enough?'"

"It was very charitable of you to save another one," Aziraphale said.[19] Crowley let out the groan he was expected to make, and Aziraphale shook his head. "Surely it was easier the second time than the first."

The three beings who'd spend the last couple of days in this universe exchanged a look.

"Piece of cake," Anthony said.

"Crowley was most helpful," Wrong Aziraphale added.

"I can count on one hand the number of times they've agreed on something since I got here," Crowley put in, with an ear-to-ear grin.

Aziraphale looked startled. The others glowered at Crowley.

Wrong Aziraphale said, stiffly, "Our timeline didn't get the same start. We have a longstanding history of professional rivalry."

The look on his face suggested Anthony was struggling not to make a comment about Wrong Aziraphale's historical levels of professionalism. In the end he managed to keep it to himself, and all he said was, "Strictly business-related sabotage."

A concerned crease appeared between Aziraphale's eyes. "I see. Some things were bound to be different, I suppose." He cleared his throat. "I would normally be very interested in chatting, but creating the portal took the better part of an afternoon and we should be getting on home. Thank you for taking care of my Crowley."

"Mmph," Anthony said. He shot Crowley a look. It roughly translated to: Please don't tell your angel I locked you in the back of the Bentley at knifepoint.

Meanwhile Wrong Aziraphale said, "It was no trouble," in the voice of someone who had at no point come close to throwing a dagger into Crowley's gut. Honestly, it was impressive.

"They were perfect hosts," Crowley said. He pressed a hand to the small of Aziraphale's back. "Let's get out of here, angel."

Together, they turned and began walking toward the portal. The air grew warmer the closer they got to it. Cutting through the fabric between universes must take a lot of energy. Crowley watched Wrong Newt tug Wrong Anathema back from the opening, making way for the two of them, and considered the coolest thing he could say on his way out. Something that would really stick with the other them.

 _Good luck at the wedding_ would be very funny. But also Wrong Aziraphale might throw another knife at him.

A few steps away from the portal, Aziraphale asked, "They do know about the executions, don't they?"

"Nope," Crowley said, pivoting. He wasn't about to risk that prophecy being missing. "Be right back."

He trotted over to the Wrong set. Both of them braced themselves at his approach.

"Not a lot of time. But just so you know - there _are_ consequences for this," he said. Then he looked straight at Anthony. His voice went flat and edged. "If you don't want Gabriel to say what I told you he said to Aziraphale, you're going to have to keep working together."

Wrong Aziraphale frowned. "What did-"

"I'll tell you later, Zira," Anthony murmured. He shook his head when Wrong Aziraphale stared at him. He asked Crowley, "Work together how?"

"Heaven and Hell are going to try to end you both. Permanently. And you have to fool them, or they're going to get away with it," Crowley said. "If you can't pretend to be each other, if you can't convince them they've got the right person, you're going to melt and burn."

Wrong Aziraphale swallowed. "Oh."

"You know each other," Crowley insisted. "You can make it work, if you just wait to argue until after."

Anthony scowled. "You left out a lot during your first Armageddon primer."

"That's it. Swear." Crowley lifted his hands and began to back up. "I'm only six months ahead of you, I really don't know anything else."

Leaning back on his heels, Anthony grumbled, "Your Aziraphale's getting antsy."

"Don't muck it up," Crowley told them.

When Crowley was halfway back to the portal, Aziraphale's eyebrows went up. He had one foot inside the rift, and a hand on the edge, like he was holding it open for them. Crowley started to ask what was up when he felt a now-familiar hand gingerly touch his arm.

He looked over his shoulder. "Hey."

A nervous smile yanked at the corner of Wrong Aziraphale's mouth. Once, twice, before it stretched all the way across his face. He swallowed and said in a quiet voice that couldn't be overheard by anyone else, "I couldn't have done it. What Gabriel told me to do," he said. "I hope you know that."

It took a second to click. "I'm sure Anthony knows, angel," Crowley said, softly.

Wrong Aziraphale laughed, high and anxious, as if of course he hadn't been worrying about what Anthony thought of him or his willingness to follow the Archangel Gabriel's orders. He cut the laughter off with a deep breath. "You and … You and your companion seem very happy."

"Inside tip?" Crowley lowered his sunglasses. "Don't be so quick to chase yours off this time."

"I doubt Anthony will want to stick around. I've never been good at getting that to work out," Wrong Aziraphale said, one corner of his mouth still turned up. For a moment his eyes clouded over. "The first time I tried, and please don't shout this at him because he doesn't know I didn't do it on purpose, but I accidentally discorporated him. We were both very drunk and too close to a canal. I really didn't mean for him to drown. I've never been able to make things work, with us."

"Might be surprised."

Wrong Aziraphale shook his head. And then he performed one of his sleight-of-hand tricks and produced a small pearl-handled knife out of nowhere. It looked identical to the one he'd thrown into the box of pastries when Crowley first arrived. He pressed it handle-first against Crowley's palm.

"Please take this. For my counterpart. I know he doesn't need it, but I can't bear to think of myself out there with no protection."

"Aziraphale manages. But I'm sure he'll keep it somewhere safe." Crowley hesitated. "When the mess is all over, give yourselves another chance. All right?"

Wrong Aziraphale smiled again. "Don't worry about us."

Crowley looked at him for a moment, then turned and walked to the portal.

There wasn't time for anything else. They'd have to figure out the rest on their own.

The edges of the portal flickered. Up close, the whole thing looked a lot more solid than from where he'd been standing when it opened. The outline was darkening back to solid gold. Little wisps of orange suggested the portal's time was almost up. The air stirred both his and Aziraphale's clothes as Crowley stepped up to the threshold.

"Here," he said, passing the dagger over to Aziraphale. "Souvenir."

"Beg pardon?"

Aziraphale turned the knife over in his hand, eyebrows drawn together. He let Crowley nudge him the rest of the way through the portal.

"It's a dagger. The other you is, er, a hobbyist. Wanted you to have it. He has lots, don't worry about it."

It was such a relief to be on the other side, in the chill winter air, that Crowley nearly sank down on the pavement. Instead he leaned heavily against Aziraphale's side, sliding an arm around his waist. For balance. Somehow on this side of things, the air was also rushing into the portal. The edges looked a lot darker on their end, too.

Aziraphale blinked. He looked up and said in a clear voice that carried on the strange wind, back through the portal, "This isn't a dagger. It's a magician's throwing knife. For performances."

In the other universe, Anthony squawked, "It's a _what?"_

Crowley turned.

Wrong Aziraphale waved goodbye, his smile slightly too wide, ignoring the way that Anthony gaped at him.

"It is a nice knife," Aziraphale called to Anthony, consolingly.

The portal abruptly winked shut.

Anathema (the Right Anathema) smiled at Crowley. "I'm so jealous you got to actually go to a parallel universe."

"It wasn't everything it's cracked up to be." He nodded at her theodolite. "When are you going to upgrade that to a modern model?"

"When lasers can help me pinpoint a spot where the borders between realities have gone thin enough to rip apart, establish a portal, and rescue someone who for all appearances seemed to be stuck there with no hope of escape," Anathema said, her smile growing brighter.

Crowley made a face at her.

Then he spotted something else, further behind her than the theodolite. "Is that the Bentley?"

"Yes," Anathema said.

If they'd been closer to the car, Crowley would have flung himself down on the hood. It looked identical from here, but he was sure it would beat Anthony's by any measure. For one, it wouldn't helpfully make extra room so someone could lock Crowley away.

He frowned. "Wait. Did you drive it?"

Anathema adjusted her glasses. "Of course not."

Crowley looked at Aziraphale.

"Don't be silly," Aziraphale said, before he could ask. "The car drove itself."

"Naturally."

Anathema bent to pick up her bag, and hefted it onto her shoulder. "I'm going to pack the theodolite back into the car," she said.

While she did that, which also conveniently carried her out of earshot, Aziraphale miracled up a sheath for the magician's throwing knife and tucked it into an inner corner of his coat. That was almost certainly not the answer to how Wrong Aziraphale had kept so many knives on his person, but watching it was strangely comforting. Crowley leaned forward and rested his chin on Aziraphale's shoulder. Aziraphale gave him a fond smile and rested his hand in Crowley's hair.

"Did try to get back," Crowley murmured. "Too big for a miracle. And then we had to keep the world from ending."

"I never doubted you. I may have gotten anxious, but I knew you wouldn't have wanted to go and stay away."

"Anxious?"

"I got a little carried away and checked in with Death."

Crowley considered that for a moment. "That's a lot."

"He was surprisingly helpful."

"Hmm. Well, I don't think you have to worry about me disappearing again." Crowley touched his tongue to the back of his teeth. Saying it out loud felt like a risk, but so did keeping quiet. "Can't explain it. Just got a feeling."

"Of course," Aziraphale said. He didn't seem surprised at all. "You were the _deus ex machina,_ and you fulfilled your role."

"Angel, don't call me a _deus ex machina._ "

The smile on Aziraphale's face was entirely innocent. If Crowley hadn't specifically been looking for it, he would've missed the gleeful glint in the angel's eyes. "Whyever not? I think it fits perfectly."

"Because I never liked that plot device," Crowley said, steadfastly refusing to whine about it. "Do you remember how many Greek plays I had to sit through where the gods came in and fixed everything at the end? It was boring!"

"Yes, I remember how much you hated the plays in Greece," Aziraphale agreed. He paused. Then he asked, in a careful voice, "The other two… They don't like each other? At all?"

Crowley knew the feeling. Watching Wrong Aziraphale and Anthony bicker had been infuriating, but it had cut, too. Like having the worst of your decisions flung in your face, in mirror perfection.

"Had some dust-ups. They'd definitely get along if they were willing to shut up for half a minute," he said. "Pretty sure they want to, but…"

"Yes," Aziraphale said. "Still. They have to face Heaven and Hell together."

"No better way to figure things out."

The heat from the portal began to dissipate. There was still a slight breeze. It carried clouds along the horizon and stirred a chill around Crowley's body. He still didn't move to lift his head or step away from Aziraphale. Aziraphale did tug him a little closer.

They stood like that until Anathema cleared her throat and told them Newt was expecting her back for dinner.

On the way home, Crowley asked the Bentley, "Do y'think you can do some of that driving-yourself thing?"

Turns out, it could.

Aziraphale took Crowley's hand.

The stereo played _Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy_ twice in a row.

Crowley let out a groan as he sank down on his bed.

"You weren't gone for that long," Aziraphale tutted. He took a moment to hang his coat up by the bedroom door. "Didn't you visit the other you's flat?"

"No," Crowley said, into his pillow. "Stuck to the bookshop. Had to sleep in a chair."

Aziraphale removed his shoes and walked over to the bed. When he sat down, Crowley rolled over. Or rather, he rolled himself onto his side and rested his head in Aziraphale's lap. Aziraphale cupped his hand against Crowley's face. The corner of Crowley's mouth turned up in a tired half-smile. He had removed his sunglasses. Aziraphale didn't know where they were, but when Crowley looked up at him, it was with unguarded yellow eyes. His red hair splayed out against Aziraphale's thigh. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time Aziraphale had seen him, before he'd vanished.

"Don't cry, angel," Crowley said. He lifted his hand and swept a tear from Aziraphale's cheek. "It's all right."

"I'm being terribly silly."

Aziraphale sniffed and looked up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly, so no more traitorous thoughts would spill out from his eyes.

Crowley pushed himself up. He moved so his body lay heavily across Aziraphale's chest, and he put his head back on Aziraphale's shoulder. One of his hands reached down to clasp Aziraphale's. Aziraphale wrapped his free arm around Crowley's middle.

"When I realized when it was, after I landed there, I figured all I had to do was get past Armageddon." Crowley sighed. "Tougher than it sounds. Those two spent six thousand years at each other's throats. The other you had as many knives as books."

"They looked just like us. I don't know how _we_ could've ever gotten like that."

"Bad start, accidental discorporation. Couldn't talk to each other about it…" Crowley's voice drifted off. He squeezed Aziraphale's hand, tight, until Aziraphale squeezed back. Then his fingers relaxed. "Anyway. I hid out in a bar and drank the entire first night. Thought the world was coming apart when that portal opened. Had to get both of them to keep me from giving up. You're not being silly."

Aziraphale sniffled. "If you say so, my dear."

For a long moment Aziraphale contented himself to hold Crowley and feel the rise and fall of Crowley's chest against his own.

"Think they didn't know how to do anything but fight. But they didn't know how to let go, either," Crowley said, at last. He hesitated. Aziraphale glanced down. Crowley's pupils had widened slightly. "I used to look for you. Especially if I'd just done something clever."

"You do like to gloat," Aziraphale teased.

Crowley said, "I didn't know how else to make you stay with me."

Warmth suffused Aziraphale's chest. His ribs seized up. Something thickened in his throat, and it took him several seconds before he could speak past it.

Crowley waited for him, patiently. Not pressing.

"I didn't have that many ideas on how to ask you to be around me, either," Aziraphale said. "I couldn't have found the words, but I did very much want you to be my friend."

"We got there eventually."

"Sometime after Camelot," Aziraphale agreed.

Crowley groaned. At the startled expression on Aziraphale's face, Crowley's free hand flopped in a dismissive wave. "I didn't get all the details, but Camelot was a mess for the wrong us. Something about Arthur getting a holy sword, and Anthony trying to get Wrong Aziraphale to dance. And while we were drinking, they mentioned a jousting tournament?" Crowley grimaced, sticking his tongue out. "Can't picture getting on a horse for sport."

"I can't either," Aziraphale said, knowing it would get him another grimace. The tight, too-big feeling in his chest began to loosen. He squeezed Crowley's hand again. "I missed you awfully, dearest," he whispered.

Crowley sat all the way up. He touched their foreheads together.

"Don't care how many other universes there are," he said, "you're the only angel I care about."

"You're the only demon who could ever tempt me," Aziraphale murmured back, and kissed him.

He hoped that in the other universe, their counterparts were having as nice a post-Armageddon evening as he and Crowley had gotten to enjoy in their own reality. There was no way to know for certain, but an angel could hope.

As for them, they spent the night in the half of their home that was Crowley's flat. Crowley handed over his phone and Aziraphale read him a few astronomy articles that were so off-base as to remind Aziraphale of paleontology. He hardly understood the appeal, but humanity's astronomical observations made Crowley laugh, so he didn't mind.

And Crowley made him hot cocoa after, by hand, no miracles.

In the morning they went to the bookshop together. Crowley immediately made himself at home (this being, of course, the other half of their home together) and broke out a special vintage from Aziraphale's wine collection.

"Oh," Aziraphale said, when Crowley emerged from the back of the bookshop with the bottle in hand. "I thought I had hidden that much better."

Crowley winked at him. He'd left his sunglasses on the coffee table. With a flick of his hand he called up two glasses, and poured Aziraphale a drink with a skill surpassing any sommelier employed by the Ritz.

Then dropped down to sprawl out on the couch. "I've always known where you keep the good stuff, angel."

"I'll have to find a new hiding place," Aziraphale mused.

As expected, Crowley grinned. "I like a challenge."

Aziraphale lifted his drink. "To home."

Crowley clinked their glasses together. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

"And to our counterparts. For luck," Aziraphale added, taking a sip of wine. It was as good as he'd expected when he'd hidden it in the back.

"They're going to need it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 19. Which Crowley had been waiting for since chapter 5. Hearing it was even better than he'd imagined.↩


	10. Chapter 10

Aziraphale could not sit still.

Anthony kept both hands on the wheel of the Bentley. He stared resolutely through the windshield for most of the drive home, and only looked at the center of the front seat occasionally, in case someone had fast-tracked Hastur's replacement body and the duke decided to pull another 'surprise appearance' stunt. Anthony watched the road, and he tried not to be bothered by all of Aziraphale's nervous fidgeting. In his experience nervous fidgeting heralded the appearance of knives.[20]

"Aziraphale," he said when they were nearing the M25.

"Yes?"

"What do I need to do to get you to relax? I'm not going to crash the damned car. If you haven't noticed, I'm in it."

Aziraphale pressed his lips together. Then he put his hands in his lap. "Forgive me," he said, stiffly. "I had assumed that if I was ever alone with you in your car, it would be because you'd tied me up."

It was a good thing Anthony had such a firm grip on the steering wheel because otherwise he might have crashed the car after all.

"Please do get that look off your face," Aziraphale said, about whatever look was on Anthony's face. "I meant that you would have captured me again, for nefarious purposes. You know that's what I meant. Not whatever you were thinking."

"You don't know what I'm thinking," Anthony said, only a tad spitefully.

God but he was sick of Aziraphale thinking he knew what was in Anthony's head.

There was no reply. When Anthony glanced over, Aziraphale was staring unhappily at his hands.

"Anyway," Anthony said. He let his tongue fork in his mouth, and he was maybe a bit more expressive than he needed to be with his next sentence. Hissing was always good for riling Aziraphale up a bit, and an irritated Aziraphale was better than a sulking one. "I think you underesstimate my range of nefariouss purposess, Zira."

Aziraphale flushed. It was extremely gratifying. "Hush, you."

"If I shut up, will you calm down?"

Aziraphale only sighed.

Slouching down in his seat was at cross purposes with continuing to drive the car, so Anthony remained upright. What could he say? What would Aziraphale believe, coming from him? Not some things. Not a lot of things. Self-preservation, though.

"I don't want to get extinctioned any more than you do. I'm not going to muck it all up now." He grit his teeth and added, with genuine reluctance, "Promise."

Promises were dangerous, when you were a demon. When you were a demon, it was because you'd broken a promise a long time ago. The night in the bookshop, Anthony never gotten drunk enough to ask Crowley if he'd Fallen for questions like _Why do I have do what You say?_ But it was tough to imagine Crowley Falling for any other reason.

"The last time you promised me something - aside from revenge - you said you weren't going to Tempt that young Michelangelo away from his work in the Sistine Chapel," Aziraphale said.

That was an unexpected response. It was difficult not to grin.

"S'not my fault the Pope messed up his cheques. What was I supposed to tell him, don't worry about not getting paid for your honest day's work?"

Aziraphale struggled with that just like he'd struggled with it in Italy. And just like in Italy, he brushed it off. "You must see why I'm reluctant to be at your… at your mercy. This is your territory. I can't go back to the bookshop because Gabriel is furious and Uriel's visit undid all of my warning systems, so I won't even know if we're being approached."

"The last time _I_ was at _your_ mercy, you put me on my knees and pressed one of those pretty little throwing knives to my throat," Anthony said, quietly.

He did not say that in the context of being trapped in a summoning circle at Aziraphale's mercy, knives were extremely hot. [21]

"I did not! I know you are upset that I took so long to break the circle, but I still didn't know if I could trust Crowley and I didn't want the both of you free at the same time," Aziraphale complained. "I certainly did not put you on your knees. I didn't make you burn yourself on the boundary, either. And cleaning my 'little knives' is not the same as using them against you."

Anthony made a sound in the back of his throat. "Not that circle, Zira. The one in your house. In the 1700s, before you had the bookshop."

Aziraphale went briefly still.

"You remember."

"I remember," Aziraphale said. He turned to look at Anthony. Since Anthony had the excuse of still needing not to crash the car, he didn't have to look directly at the expression on Aziraphale's face, or meet his blue eyes. "Do you remember playacting as if the circle had done you in, and then using my own knife to discorporate me when I checked on your body?"

_Frequently,_ Anthony thought. _At night. Alone._

Anthony remembered the fury in Aziraphale's eyes and the way he'd managed to break Anthony's wrist before Anthony had won that contest. Six thousand years of fighting will give a demon certain… predilections.

What he said was, "Yes. But you see my point. I don't have any reason to trust you either."

"I'm an angel."

Anthony let that one sit.

"All right," Aziraphale said, after a minute of quiet. "I see. But if I can't trust your promise and you can't trust mine, then how are we going to manage any of this, Anthony?"

It still set off some kind of spark in Anthony's chest to hear his name - his actual name - on Aziraphale's tongue.

"Not going back to 'Crawly' won't hurt."

"I wouldn't do that! Not now that I'm used to it." Aziraphale sounded offended.

Anthony wasn't really sure what to do with that. It was one thing to use his name. It was another to be surprised at Anthony's surprise. As if it was preposterous to imagine Aziraphale using Anthony's old name like one of his pearl-handled knives. As if all of Hell didn't still say _Crawly_ in a way that condensed the feeling of squirming in the mud into two syllables. As if Anthony asking to be called something meant that was the only thing to call him.

He swallowed. "I'll stop using 'Zira,' then. Fair trade."

Aziraphale replied, almost inaudibly, "You don't have to."

Anthony had no bloody clue what to do with _that,_ not at all.

Continuing not to crash the car was a safe bet.

The flat they drove to was in a tall, modern building. From the street, Aziraphale could see wide glass windows all around the top floor. A penthouse. That must be Anthony's. He didn't realize he was staring until Anthony cleared his throat, and Aziraphale looked down to see Anthony holding the building door open. Right.

He braced himself and stepped inside. Anthony followed.

The lift had no buttons. Instead Anthony produced a single key with a round mirrored disc attached to it. He pressed it to a panel inside the lift, and they began to ascend.

There was also no panel reading out which floor they were on. Since Aziraphale couldn't count their ascent, he took a mental tally of his knives. Minus the one he'd given to his other self. Oh, yes, Anthony had promised - and privately Aziraphale did believe him, perhaps against his better judgment - but habit was comforting. That was why it became habit.

The elevator opened on a lobby. Gleaming black tile reflected their images as they crossed the small space to the only door.

Anthony used the key to open it. Then he stepped inside a surprisingly bright space. The entryway to his flat faced a gray wall. A hallway branched off to the left and right, but there was nothing to look at from here.

Aziraphale hovered outside the door. "No traps to disarm?"

"No. Figured you'd never see the place and didn't bother."

"I have visited your homes before," Aziraphale pointed out. He stepped inside.

Anthony made a gesture and the door shut itself. "Yes. Why do you think I put so much energy into hiding this one?"

"Fair enough."

It was true. This was the first invitation to Anthony's home Aziraphale had ever received that didn't involve rubbing Aziraphale's face in how successfully Anthony was tempting the local population, particularly people Aziraphale had been trying to influence himself.

Of course it was only because of Crowley. Anthony wouldn't have invited Aziraphale over if he didn't need to worry about being holy-watered into oblivion.

They turned left. Aziraphale walked with his hands open at his sides, ready to defend himself, although that appeared to be an increasingly unlikely necessity. The hall was nothing but featureless gray walls. The floor was gray. Aziraphale looked at Anthony's back. The way his black jacket hugged his narrow shoulders, and how his black slacks… No, no, no. What Anthony looked like in his suit wasn't the point, the point was that even he surely must have a pop of color somewhere in this place.

They turned into a truly massive living room. Aziraphale blinked.

Anthony strode across the space and flung himself down on a black couch. He groaned and threw an arm over his eyes. "Today's been too long."

Aziraphale was sure he had a stupefied look on his face. He couldn't help it. Everywhere he turned, there was something else to look at. Tall rubber trees. Gloriously lush birds of paradise, one in bloom. There was a philodendron, and a milk thistle, and a dozen more plants besides that Aziraphale didn't recognize.

None of Anthony's homes had ever looked like this before. Not that Aziraphale had seen. The far wall also had an impressive amount of windows. Some of them were floor-to-ceiling. After a moment, when it was clear Anthony wasn't about to snap at him for wandering around, Aziraphale tentatively walked past the foliage to look out at the city.

"You live so close!" he said, when the shapes of buildings and streets below resolved themselves into coherency. Why, he wouldn't even need to take a bus to visit. It would be a perfectly nice walk.

"Not my fault the bookshop's in the middle of London."

"But we're not in the penthouse, are we? There aren't enough windows."

Anthony made a little noise. "Penthouses draw too much attention. Everybody knows who lives on the top floor. Nobody can remember the man who lives two floors down."

"I suppose."

Aziraphale leaned in to get a better look at the nearest plant. It hung from the ceiling in a white ceramic pot. Long tumbling vines with wide green leaves dripped over the side. He reached up and touched the underside of one of the tiny, pale flower buds nestled in amongst the leaves. As he inspected it, he thought he saw the vine tremble.

"Aren't you a lovely thing?" he asked. The little vine trembled again and wrapped itself around his hand. "Oh!"

Abruptly, Anthony was behind him, his right hand clamping Aziraphale's right wrist and his left hand reaching around behind Aziraphale to brush the vine away.

_"Behave yourselvesss,"_ he hissed. "That means all of you!"

The windows were tinted enough that Aziraphale could see a faint reflection in the glass. Anthony was glaring around at the plants. Aziraphale's own eyes had gotten wide. He swallowed and looked away before he could linger too long on the sight of Anthony framing him so. And anyway, Anthony dropped his hold on Aziraphale's wrist and took several steps back, so it hardly mattered how hot his fingers had been against Aziraphale's skin, or how tightly he'd been holding on, or how gently he'd brushed the vine away. Aziraphale made his expression neutral before he turned around.

"Can't shower them in praise, it goes straight to their roots," Anthony grumbled.

"I don't think the poor thing wanted to harm me."

Anthony scowled. He gestured at the hanging plant. "No, but look at it."

The plant had produced several small, pale pink flowers along the vine closest to Aziraphale.

"But it's so charming," Aziraphale said.

Another flower opened as he said it, and he smiled.

"It's ahead of season is what it is. C'mon, sit down before we're covered in pollen. They _know_ how I feel about excessive shows of pollen," he said, darkly.

The couch was flanked by two chairs, but each of them looked terribly stiff. Aziraphale gingerly lowered himself down on one end of the couch instead. It meant Anthony wouldn't be able to stretch out again, but there was still room for both of them to sit on the couch without bumping against each other.

Anthony stopped next to one of the chairs. For a moment Aziraphale's heart dropped - was taking a seat on the couch too forward? - but all Anthony did was unbutton and shrug out of his black suit jacket. It made his shoulders roll back and his shirt strain against his chest. Aziraphale studied an unusual potted plant while Anthony pulled the jacket off and dropped it into a chair.

Then Anthony dropped himself onto the opposite end of the couch.

"May I ask you something?" Aziraphale asked.

Anthony grimaced. "About what Gabriel said."

That made Aziraphale's head jerk up. That hadn't been what he was going to ask, but… 

"When Crowley went up in his angel's place, Gabriel made him face the Hellfire and told him, and I quote…" Anthony ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "'Shut your stupid mouth and die already.'"

"I see."

Anthony had made no effort to do an impression of Gabriel's voice, but Aziraphale heard it anyway. Interesting, how hearing the exact words was so much different than being told someone he'd known since he was created wanted him erased from existence. Interesting, that it was so much easier to imagine in Gabriel's voice than to replay the words in Anthony's own.

"You want a drink?" Anthony sounded like he wanted a drink.

"Well, yes…"

Anthony snapped his fingers. Two bottles of wine appeared on the coffee table, accompanied by two glasses and cloth napkins. The labels on the bottles weren't familiar, but the craftsmanship was obvious. No doubt each bottle was a fine vintage.

"Thank you," Aziraphale said, reflexively. Less reflexively, he raised an eyebrow and asked, "No bottle opener?"

Smirking, Anthony stretched one arm out along the back of the couch. He leaned forward, snapped, his fingers, and removed the cork from Aziraphale's bottle with a swipe of his thumb. Then he poured Aziraphale a generous measure of wine before leaning back and taking care of his own drink.

"Thank you," Aziraphale said again, still reflexively but more quietly.

Anthony took a long drink. Then he dropped his head against the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling. "We should've asked Crowley how they pulled it off."

"It looked as if they knew each other well enough."

"Nah, I mean…" Anthony waved his glass. "The swap bit."

"It can only be so complicated," Aziraphale said. The others had figured it out all on their own, and they hadn't even been told exactly what they needed to do. All they'd had was Agnes's prophecy, not Crowley's information on what had followed. He was quiet for a moment. "What I was going to ask was, why were you in my neighborhood, when Crowley got here? Shouldn't you have been preparing for Armageddon?"

Anthony continued staring at the ceiling.

"You don't have to tell me," Aziraphale said.

He shouldn't have expected otherwise. He should have known better. Inviting Aziraphale into his flat had already been an enormous concession on Anthony's part. Anthony could have told him to get a hotel for the night and come to collect him in the morning. He didn't have to let Aziraphale in, just because they needed each other for a while longer.

Anthony also could have lied about what Gabriel said in the other universe. Or 'forgotten' to bring it up entirely.

Or left Aziraphale at the air base waiting for a bus.

Or never come to the bookshop at all, after he'd run into Crowley.

Aziraphale was quiet for another moment.

He did want to know why.

Anthony glanced over to see that Aziraphale was staring down into his glass. There was a thoughtful frown on his face. Anthony tried not to cringe. Aziraphale putting careful thought into things had never gone well for him.

"I think you should, though. Tell me why you were in Soho." 

Aziraphale turned suddenly, before Anthony had the chance to act like he hadn't been watching. His eyes focused sharply on Anothony's face. It was like being pinned in place with a knife (not that Aziraphale had ever made Anthony suffer that particular indignity).

"We've never answered each other's questions. Without Crowley, we would have let Armageddon proceed. Maybe Adam would have stopped it after all, but maybe without us there, Gabriel and Beelzebub could have called forth the armies regardless."

"And that means I have to talk about why I was in Soho?"

Aziraphale bit his lip. Something in Anthony's gut rolled over. Aziraphale said, "Of course I'll answer a question of yours. If we're to be working together, we must work together." He lifted his chin. "And if you're too afraid to go first, then I will."

"M'not _afraid._ "

No reply. Aziraphale raised a single eyebrow.

Anthony glowered at a gardenia until it shrank in on itself.

"I was planning on leaving. Figured… the whole place was going to go up in flame, so why stay?" He shifted his weight. "Felt wrong to leave without stopping by, but I knew it'd be a mess if I just popped in."

"It nearly was, for Crowley." Aziraphale a sip of wine. "Wanted to get the last word in?"

"Was going to say goodbye, Zira."

Aziraphale's comfortable expression cracked. Something hesitant settled into his eyes. He bit his lip again.

Anthony's gut did that stupid 'Aziraphale is biting his lip' roll-over again, too.

"Goodbye?" Aziraphale's voice was soft. "Wouldn't you have reported, for the fighting?"

"No. I was going to skate off to Alpha Centauri. Let everyone else battle it out if they were so keen."

"But that's what we've been doing," Aziraphale said. "We've been fighting. Who else could I have faced off against, during Armageddon?"

"Not me," Anthony said. "Armageddon is business. Our fights are personal."

"Our rivalry is - was professional," Aziraphale said, and wasn't that an interesting correction.

Anthony let his head loll to the side. "You don't like fighting, Zira. You like getting the last word in. Sometimes that means you throw what apparently are magic trick knives at me, but that's not how you work."

Aziraphale chewed that over. "Very well. You answered my question. What did you want to ask me?"

Anthony stared at his glass. It was half-empty again. Anything?

If he could ask Aziraphale anything, and expect an answer…

"Why did Camelot go so wrong?" he murmured, not looking up from his reflection in the wine. It wasn't a perfect reflection. The glass was too small and the liquid still moving from the last sip. The mirror image of him had warped dark spots for eyes instead of sunglasses.

"If that's the question you want answered, we need to go to the bookshop after all. There's an entire industry dedicated to writing about that. Even my collection isn't comprehensive."

"Not with Arthur," Anthony said. He looked up. "With us."

Aziraphale paused, then drank until his glass was empty. He set it back without refilling it. "Arthur was special. Heaven did give him a holy sword, even though it wasn't actually _my_ sword. And you were the Black Knight," he said, enunciating the capital letters. "I was a knight of the Round Table. All the other knights hated you, you know. They complained about how flash you were and how your horse frightened all the others in the jousting."

"That beast frightened me," Anthony muttered, shuddering. "But I didn't do anything to you. All I did was knock a couple people out of the tournament before getting knocked out myself."

Bright spots of color rose to Aziraphale's face. "You snuck into the banquet and embarrassed me in front of everyone I knew."

"You're the one who embarrassed yourself. From what I saw all the other knights thought you should take the mysterious lady in red's invitation up."

It wasn't his fault Aziraphale had made such a scene of turning Lady Anthony down. The incident was seared into Anthony's memory. He could recall the dress he'd been wearing, and the way he'd styled his hair, and how he'd managed to ditch that stupid flaming-eyed horse for an entire evening. The food had been good. The wine tolerable. And when he'd tried talking to Aziraphale, it was like the entire Round Table began angling to get the two of them in a corner together. Everyone had been thrilled Sir Aziraphale was getting some attention.

It wasn't Anthony's fault it had gone so wrong.

He just wanted to know why.

"You can't mean that you actually wanted to dance," Aziraphale said. "You know I couldn't have. Why would you have asked me, if not to embarrass me?"

"I would have lead. Obviousssly," Anthony said. He crossed his arms over his chest and sank down into the couch. He wished he hadn't asked this question. He should've asked something funny, made Aziraphale laugh. Not this. "Aside from Arthur getting that sword, we hadn't been fighting. You were perfectly cordial to the Black Knight at the tournament."

"I was showing everyone your reputation didn't frighten me."

"My reputation _didn't_ frighten you."

"Of course not!" Aziraphale stood up and began walking back and forth in front of the coffee table. His hands flitted around. He touched his ring, and his coat, which made Anthony tense and prepare for the appearance of a knife. None came. Aziraphale kept pacing. "Why on Earth would you have wanted to dance with me, if not to humiliate me?"

"We weren't fighting," Anthony repeated. "I thought we'd both gotten tired of it. I thought maybe we were even."

"So from your perspective we were even, and I was polite to you in public, and then I kicked up a fuss and rejected you in front of the entire court for no reason?"

Anthony shrugged. No knives had come, but it felt like there was on lodged in his chest all the same.

"Then why did you storm off and Tempt Lancelot?"

"I didn't Tempt Lancelot, I existed near Lancelot in a dress," Anthony complained. "I didn't even let him walk me back to my room. Not that I had a room, I snuck back out to my stupid horse, but if I had…"

"Well, I didn't know that witchfinder was going to execute you, all those years later. I didn't even want to bless him, but Gabriel ordered it specifically," Aziraphale said. The subject change made Anthony's head spin a bit. Aziraphale added, "You didn't have to come gloat at me in the Bastille like that."

"You skipped over the part where you also blessed St. George. It took me five years to get a new corporation issued."

"It took me five after that trick you pulled with the occult circle."

"Fantastic. Are we even now?"

"Yes!"

The sharp pain in Anthony's chest pulsed. "What?"

"By my reckoning, accounting for misunderstandings, we are even," Aziraphale said. He'd stopped pacing. He stood next to the gardenia, hands tangled together, eyes on the wall. "And if you truly meant it, then I apologize about Camelot."

Thoughts tumbled in Anthony's head. He tried to piece them together. None of the edges fit.

The only thing he could make come out of his mouth was, "If we're even, then you don't owe me an apology."

Still facing the wall, Aziraphale made a sound that was almost a laugh. "I would like an apology for the Bastille, though."

"What was I supposed to do, rescue you?"

"You could not have made those comments about my outfit."

"Your outfit was the reason you were in the Bastille. Also, my comments were flattering," Anthony insisted.

Aziraphale said nothing. His shoulders hunched.

Anthony pressed his lips together.

Six thousand years on Earth. Nearly that many years of fighting. All the while in a universe a step to the left, Crowley and his angel had been Arranging things to their benefit and spending late nights getting happily drunk. Crowley and his angel hadn't made a habit of discorporating or humiliating each other to get revenge for the last discorporation or humiliation.

Crowley had disappeared, and his angel had ripped open the universe to bring him back.

Anthony took a long, slow breath. 

Even more slowly, he removed his sunglasses. He folded them up. Stared at them in his fingers for a moment. Then set them down on the coffee table.

"Aziraphale," he said, raising to his feet.

"Yes? Oh." Aziraphale had turned around. He froze at the sight of Anthony's face, bare of armor. His lips were slightly parted.

It was so, so tempting to put the sunglasses back on. But Anthony was a demon. He did the Temptation. It wasn't done to him.

_Fuck it,_ he thought.

He took a step forward and touched his hand to the side of Aziraphale's face. Doing so left him completely open to attack. If Aziraphale wanted, he could gut Anthony clean through. Anthony thought it might be worth it just for the chance to see Aziraphale's eyes up close, though.[22]

If this was what Aziraphale wanted.

Maybe it would be nice to be even, for real.

"Zira," Anthony murmured. He let his thumb move along Aziraphale's cheek. "I'm sorry about the Bastille."

Aziraphale latched onto Anthony's shirt with both hands, tugged him forward, and kissed him.

Demons did not melt. That was absolutely not what Anthony did.

He was a snake, that's all. He slid the hand on Aziraphale's face into Aziraphale's (soft, so soft) hair, and he went loose and pliant. His chest pressed heavily against Aziraphale's. Aziraphale had to shift his hands to grip Anthony's shoulders so they would both remain upright. Anthony shifted his weight some more so he could brace himself with one of Aziraphale's legs pressed just barely between his own.

Wasn't anything like melting.

The kiss ended. Aziraphale held onto Anthony's shoulders, not letting go. He smiled tentatively, his fingers digging into Anthony's shirt a little. "I didn't want to say the wrong thing," he said, "so I thought it might be best not to say anything at all."

In answer, Anthony kissed him again.

Disagreeing with Aziraphale wasn't _always_ the most fun option.

"Anthony. About the swap, and how to manage changing our faces," Aziraphale said, between increasingly frantic kisses. "I have an idea."

"It can wait till morning," Anthony assured him.

There was a little bit of teeth to Aziraphale's next kiss. Anthony shuddered. Then Aziraphale let go of Anthony's shoulders to cup Anthony's face in his hands. Anthony had to stand up and support his weight on his own. He did not let out a whine of protest, but he thought about it. His hands slipped from Aziraphale's hair to clutch at Aziraphale's shoulders. The only gratifying thing about stopping was that it gave Anthony a chance to see how wide Aziraphale's pupils had grown. A sharp hunger had settled in his eyes.

Aziraphale said, "If we're to fool Heaven and Hell, my dear, we have to confer. We must consider whether we can act the part."

Anthony dug his fingers into Aziraphale's coat. "Do you think Gabriel knows you better than I do?"

Guilt flashed briefly across Aziraphale's face before getting swept away by a tiny, even briefer smile. Aziraphale's eyes hesitantly locked onto Crowley's.

Aziraphale said, quietly, "No."

Grinning, Anthony hopped up. Aziraphale was startled, but he'd always had quick reflexes. He caught Anthony in his arms and Anthony wrapped his legs around Aziraphale's waist. Aziraphale held him like he weighed nothing. One of his arms curled underneath Anthony and the other settled low across Anthony's back. Anthony tilted his head to one side and linked his hands together behind Aziraphale's neck.

Anthony asked, "You want to tell me more about those nefarious purposes you were so worried about earlier, Zira?"

Aziraphale glanced down at where Anthony's legs were hooked around him, then back up.

Anthony laughed. It felt good to laugh.

Aziraphale exited the taxi and sauntered up to the bookshop. He tried not to, but sauntering was the default mode for this body.

"Did you undo the traps?"

"Of course I undid the traps." Aziraphale looked to his left. "Have you been waiting out here all this time?"

Anthony shrugged. It was odd to see him in Aziraphale's body, even though Aziraphale had spent the last few minutes that morning fussing over Crowley's clothes to make sure they were correct. Tie just so, all lines straight, his pocketwatch tuned to the correct time. It wasn't the kind of thing Gabriel would notice, but it was the kind of thing that would have made it harder for Aziraphale to pretend that Anthony was him.

"Well, come inside now," Aziraphale told him.

Anthony walked into the shop like he was waiting for a rope to cinch around his ankle and yank him up to the ceiling. Which was unfair, Aziraphale had never actually laid a trap like that. He'd only teased Crowley about it.

"How did it go?" Aziraphale asked.

"Made Gabriel cry."

"You did not."

"I did not," Anthony agreed, shrugging. He relaxed a little as Aziraphale walked into the back of the shop. Probably seeing his own body not getting swept up in a net was helpful. "I did make them all think twice about bothering you again, though. Did one of your fancy tricks and cut myself out of the ropes."

Aziraphale stopped. He'd picked up a bottle of wine. He should have expected it, with what Anthony had told him Crowley said, but.

"They had me in ropes?"

Anthony grimaced. "It was fine. Scared them all to Hell. Well, you know. To the other side of the room. They won't be back after you." He looked at the chair where Aziraphale normally sat and lowered himself down on the couch right next to it. "So, uh…"

"Oh, you're absolutely not welcome in Hell again," Aziraphale said.

"That's a fucking relief."

"I may have, ah." Aziraphale poured Anthony a drink and then one for himself. Anthony was looking up at him through his own eyelashes, which was very odd. "Transformed and splashed around in the tub."

Anthony stared at him. "What do you mean, transformed?"

"Well, none of them knew you weren't a water snake," Aziraphale sniffed. "They didn't even get your name right until afterward."

"They got my name right?"

"I should hope so." That terrible Hastur demon had tried to get in Anthony's face, and, well, Aziraphale had already dealt with Hastur once. On his way out of Hell, Aziraphale may have insinuated that water snakes' primary diet consisted of frogs. At some point he should mention that detail to Anthony. Just in case.

Anthony set his drink down. "Can we switch back now?"

"If you're ready."

Anthony held perfectly still while Aziraphale cupped his face in one hand - it really was odd to look at his own face this way - and bent forward to press a kiss to his mouth.

Magic swept over the both of them. A crackling little miracle of their own, like static electricity when Aziraphale walked over the bookshop rugs in socked feet. Anthony shivered in his grip. Aziraphale opened his eyes and smiled at him. Their clothes had swapped back, but Anthony's sunglasses were perched on top of his head, so Aziraphale could see his eyes.

"Do you think that's how the other two did it?" Aziraphale asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Those two?" Anthony picked up his wine. "I doubt they did it with so many clothes on."

"Anthony!"

"What! You wear a lot of layers."

"Well, you wear a considerable amount of jewelry."

"You didn't mind the jewelry last night," Anthony said. To his credit, he only leered a little bit.

Aziraphale shook his head. It would hardly be fair to call him out on it, Anthony was a demon, after all. Then he frowned and did a brief search of his coat. "Anthony," he said, again. "Did you do something with my favorite dagger? The large one?"

"Do you mean your trick knife?"

"That one really is a dagger. And my favorite," Aziraphale reiterated.

Anthony sunk down in his seat. Now that Aziraphale had been in his body, he understood the way Anthony's hips worked, and why Anthony was so sprawled out now. It was still unfair of him to stretch his legs out like that. He grinned, and picked up his sunglasses, and tossed them down onto the coffee table with the wine bottle.

"I'll give it back if you're nice to me."

"Is that supposed to be a Temptation?"

The wine glass joined Anthony's sunglasses on the table. He surged forward, and Aziraphale found himself with a lapful of demon.

"No," he said. "But thisss is."

Aziraphale hated to admit it, but Anthony _was_ a skilled hand at Temptation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 20. Knives were less hot when Anthony was going ninety miles per hour.↩
> 
> 21. It was implied.↩
> 
> 22. Anthony couldn't have known, but Aziraphale was thinking the same thing, in reverse.↩


End file.
